


Separation

by deleterious



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Forced Pregnancy, M/M, Mech Preg, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:26:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 70,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6932296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deleterious/pseuds/deleterious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captured following the disaster at the Omega Lock, Ratchet finds himself carrying the Decepticon Emperor's sparkling and he has to deal with what comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is something of a Season 2 AU for Prime, told mostly from Ratchet's perspective, where the assault on the Omega Lock ends disastrously for the Autobots and Megatron manages to seize it. I've had this in my head for a while, and wanted to write something about it. We'll see how it goes.

"Well?" Ratchet asked after Knock Out's third consecutive grimace and the accompanying thrum of his engines. The other medic withdrew the thin probe from between his legs, and Ratchet tried not to hiss at him. He mostly succeeded. Knock Out was certainly being gentler than he had to be, but Ratchet's valve was still scraped raw in places, the cuts and abrasions were painful souvenirs from Megatron's nightly assaults in the berth.

"You see, the thing is--"

"Frag you, Knock Out." He hadn't meant for it come out as harsh as it had. The Decepticon medic was his only remaining friend - if Knock Out could even be counted as that, and Ratchet sorely needed him. "Am I carrying or not?"

"You are, but--"

Ratchet felt his spark clench, but willed himself to stay calm. It had been inevitable after all. Any Autobot with a functional gestational tank would have been quite the prize, even if the Autobot in question hadn't also been the Prime's medic. For fear of his vocalizer not responding, he gestured for the datapad that was populating with the medical scans Knock Out had done.

Knock Out chewed nervously on his nigh-invisible bottom lip and handed it over. His sympathy towards Megatron's favorite prisoner in the months since Ratchet's capture had surprised the Autobot medic - as much as the reason for it had eluded him. Still, Ratchet's situation was a perilous one, and if Knock Out wanted a friend, he wasn't going to turn the mech down. Especially not now.

Carriage was complicated and dangerous enough when you _weren't_ carrying the Emperor's sparkling.

"You can see from the scans that the litter is abnormally small--"

"Yes," said Ratchet, flicking through the dataslate as he withdrew his pedes from the stirrups and closed his valve cover. If a Decepticon never touched him again, it would be to soon. He tried to mentally distance himself from the results of the scans as he sat up, including the picts of a tiny crescent of metal clinging to the side of his gestational tank. "Small litters are perfectly normal for a first carriage."

"But there's just _one_ \--"

"Single carriage is completely typical in--"

"Ratchet!" Knock Out glared at him, his red-black optics incandescent. The mark of a common mech who couldn't afford more expensive blue or green glass. It was strange, because Ratchet had found Knock Out to be anything but common. "This is _my_ medbay, so I'd appreciate it if you could stop interrupting me!"

In the months since the fall of Earth, Ratchet had become Knock Out's impromptu tutor. At first, he'd been horrified to learn the Decepticon CMO had been mostly self-taught. Then, he had been begrudgingly impressed (which was the only kind of impressed that Ratchet ever was). Knock Out had a knack for working with virtually nothing, and he had even made several innovations of his own that would have made him the darling of Cybertron's medical community - if the community in question had still existed.

Brilliant or not, Ratchet could _still_ have filled volumes with what the racer didn't know, but Knock Out had pleaded his case to Megatron, practically begging the so-called Emperor to let Ratchet work with him. Megatron must have been feeling particularly indulgent that day, because he had allowed it. Now, Knock Out spent nearly all his free time reading or studying the educational packets Ratchet prepared for him.

By Decepticon standards, Knock Out wasn't a warrior, so if his medical expertise was what made him valuable to the Cause, Ratchet supposed they couldn't discard him. He wondered sometimes, if that was what motivated the younger medic to study so hard. If nothing else, it was paying off. By Ratchet's assessment, Knock Out could have graduated from the Academy, not that the Decepticon would have ever been allowed to attend.

"I apologize," said Ratchet, trying to imagine Knock Out was just another overeager student and hoping the earlier 'frag you' would go ignored. The moment Knock Out filed the report, Soundwave would know, and then Megatron would. His tanks churned. "Go on, Knock Out. Tell me what you think."

"I've only heard about carriage in theory," he said, stressing hard on the last word. "Since there aren't any Decepticons with functioning gestational tanks."

"I doubt there would be," Ratchet said. "They were considered extravagant luxuries even before the war, carriage was long and complicated, and a sparkling cost a fortune to support. Education, supplements, energon."

"If you don't mind me asking," Knock Out said, curiously. "Where did you get your tank?"

Ratchet wondered if there was a hint of hopefulness in Knock Out's tone - or if he had just imagined it. That he thought perhaps Ratchet had acquired the tank from some medical facility or hidden Autobot storehouse that might still exist. Sorry, Knock Out. No such luck.

"I bought it as a gift," he said. "For my conjunx. Before the War."

Knock Out was clearly trying to unpack the statement, and he started by asking, "you... had a conjunx? Since this is your first carriage, I'm guessing it didn't work out?"

Ratchet scowled. "I _still_ have a conjunx. His name is Pharma."

"So, then," Knock Out pursed his thin lips, "if it was a gift, why do you have it and not him?"

"Seekers are slag for carrying. Hollow struts, generally poor health, very susceptible to stress-related complications."

"So then he's a Seeker?" Knock Out flashed him a grin. "How scandalous."

"It was, at the time."

If the loss of Orion and the others, the children, hadn't already broken his spark, dragging Pharma back up from his past certainly would have. The jet had left Cybertron with an evacuation fleet, and Ratchet had no idea where he was.

Primus! They hadn't seen each other in millions of years, and before that, the Ark had been presumed lost. Pharma wasn't weeping and pining for him in a tower, he knew that much. And if he had moved on, Ratchet could hardly have blamed him.

"Did you and this 'Pharma' ever--"

"We were talking about the scans, Knock Out." Ratchet tapped the datapad. He wanted to talk about them, to lose himself in medical jargon and not worry about what Megatron's reaction would be. To stay removed from the reality of the situation a bit longer.

"Right, yes. Of course." Knock Out took the datapad and turned it around, frowning at it. "Despite your somewhat... advanced age, you're in very good health. No major frame damage or replacements, no prolonged periods of starvation. I'd say you're six weeks into carriage, and well, that it's viable. You need to start consuming a higher grade of energon, and I'd want to start you on supplements--"

Ratchet nodded to him, half lost in thought, though the assessment was correct. Would Megatron be furious or pleased? Some combination of the two, Ratchet guessed. He was getting good at reading the Warlord's moods - which all seemed to involve some gradient of anger, and he doubted Megatron would pass up a chance to humiliate one of the Prime's closest followers.

No rescue was likely to come. Optimus was offline. Bulkhead too. The Wrecker had tried to rush Megatron after the containers holding Miko and the other children had snapped apart - another Deception trick. Ratchet was at least grateful he hadn't had to see it, hearing Bulkhead and Arcee's anguished screaming over the comm had been painful enough. Arcee, Smokescreen, and Bumblebee had escaped onto a cyberformed Earth, but to where, he didn't know. They were still at large, Ratchet could surmise that much. Megatron's ego would never have allowed him to keep quiet if he had captured any of them.

Ratchet had been caught almost embarrassingly quickly. It was no surprise. He was slow and bulky. Too heavy. He wasn't a warrior and his top speed left something to be desired. Even if he had been, all the fight had gone out of him. He'd barely resisted when his captors had thrown him down at the foot of Megatron's throne or when the Decepticon warlord had forced the captive medic into his berth. Despite all his victories, Megatron didn't have the Matrix either, and that meant there might be a new Prime someday. His spark had ached with the weight of it, but the thought had convinced Ratchet to stay online.

There were other Autobots who still lived. Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers, somewhere in deep space. Jazz had left the Ark moments before the launch, to investigate the fate of one of his informants, promising that he would catch up 'someday'. Heatwave and his team, somewhere in what had once been the Eastern United States. The cyberforming process wouldn't have affected them - but it was painful to think of what must have happened to their human friends. And it wasn't as if any of them knew where he was.

"--unless you want to terminate."

 _Scrap_. Was Knock Out still speaking? Ratchet realized he must have been making a face, because Knock Out stepped back.

"Just a suggestion," Knock Out said, casually. "But I _have_ done terminations before."

"I thought you said there were no Decepticons with functional tanks?"

"On other Autobot captives," said Knock Out, grimacing, his fields wavering and hovering around what Ratchet guessed was supposed to be apologetic.

Ratchet heard his own engines sputter, it wasn't as if he hadn't understood the realities of Decepticon captivity, but still. "Primus."

He couldn't go through with it anyways, and from a wholly selfish (and somewhat guilty perspective) perspective, Megatron wouldn't execute him now. Ratchet shook his head. "No, Knock Out. No. Finish your report."

...and then he would just have to see what came next.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet's in a bad way, otherwise he would have wondered why KO referred to Breakdown in the present tense.

Knock Out accompanied him back to Megatron's apartments, and the walk passed mostly in silence. Ratchet tried not to think about Megatron and what was waiting for him behind the doors to the Emperor's quarters, but the mech had a way of dominating his thoughts, even when he wasn't physically present.

"I want you to take your medical exams," he said to Knock Out, as a way of ending the long silence of the trip.

At the same time, Knock Out turned to him and said, "I was just trying to scare him."

"What?" Ratchet asked, blinking.

"No, you first." Knock Out's mouth curved up into a hesitant smile. "You really think I could pass them?"

Ratchet's processor burned with curiosity, but he forged ahead. "Yes. I think you could. I'm still technically the Dean of the Medical Program, and you could earn your chevron. Become a real physican."

"As if I would ever wear a medical chevron. Haven't you seen my face? It's already perfect." Knock Out laughed sharply, but he also looked curious, pleased, and some measure of proud of himself. 

"Now you," Knock Out's reaction was amusing, and Ratchet allowed his mood to improve, just slightly, as they walked together through the dimly lit corridors of Darkmount. "Who was it were you trying so hard to frighten?"

"Bulkhead."

Ratchet felt his spark tighten at the mention of the other Autobot. His ventilations hitched, and he glared down at Knock Out - all camaraderie vanishing in an instant. Reminding himself that he needed the other medic's help now that he was carrying was the only thing that let him hold his vocalizer.

"It's just..." Knock Out wrung his delicate, clawed hands, and the pride drained out of his fields. "You have a conjunx too. Try and imagine what it would be like if some vicious Wrecker was trying to tear out his spark every time he left your base?"

Ratchet had some trouble reconciling the word ' _Bulkhead_ ' with the words ' _vicious Wrecker_ '. To him, Bulkhead was a gentle giant with a cloyingly soft spark. Then again, he couldn't help remembering Wheeljack's attempt to offline both Knock Out and Soundwave with a secondary explosive. The 'old Wrecker trick'. Ratchet was suddenly glad he'd put a stop to it.

...and just how many attempts on his spark _had_ Knock Out survived? Come to think of it, being Megatron's medic was probably just as dangerous as being Optimus'. How many nights had Knock Out spent alone, worrying that Breakdown might not come back - until the night it had finally happened? And how had Knock Out viewed the rest of Team Prime? Had Starscream gossiped with the medic about Arcee's attempt on his life? Had Knock Out bought into Megatron's rhetoric about the tyranny of Primal rule? Had he had to sort through the aftermath of a Wrecker assault on a Decepticon base? Had he been... well... _afraid_ of the Autobots? As unwilling as it was, Ratchet felt sympathy start to creep up on him. The war been brutal, and the brutality had not been entirely entrenched on the Decepticon side.

"I just wanted him to feel how I felt, to know what it was like to have someone out to hurt your loved ones." Knock Out sighed. "I _begged_ Megatron to take me along, to let me hold that girl--"

"Miko, her name was Miko Nakadai. And she was a _child_ , Knock Out. They all were."

Knock Out's engines ground out a pained noise. "I didn't know the containers were rigged, I just... I wanted to scare him. To get the upper hand for once."

"'Scared' is not how I would have characterized Bulkhead's final moments." 

"All I'm asking for is you to believe me," Knock Out said, he gestured helplessly, at nothing. "I thought all Megatron wanted was the Lock. To revive the planet, to take us home like he promised he would. I never thought he'd go this far. I didn't think it would come to-- to all this."

So then it _was_ guilt. That was why he wanted to be friends so badly. It must be hard to recharge when you had been party to the murder of billions.

"Do you think my forgiveness is going to help you recharge?" Ratchet couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Is that you've been getting at all these months?"

Knock Out laughed, the sound ugly and harsh. "Trust me, Ratchet, _nothing_ is going to help me recharge, but--" his voice lowered, "I wanted to tell you the truth. I hoped you might... understand."

Ratchet knew he should forgive Knock Out regardless of his personal opinions or emotional stake in the matter. He was all alone, surrounded by enemies, and highly vulnerable. Something told him that Starscream, for one, would not be appreciative of another obstacle to his designs on the throne - to say nothing of any other Decepticons who might be jealous or angry. Staying in the good graces of the only officer who had been willing to show him any sympathy or kindness was just good survival tactics.

He was struck though, by the sense that Knock Out was being sincere. Or at least, as sincere as Decepticons ever got. That he genuinely wanted some sort of absolution - not that Ratchet was qualified to give it. That the racer knew just how badly things had gotten out of control, and that Knock Out was just as caught up in the current.

"I believe you," Ratchet said, finally, and he found that he did. "Knock Out--"

Relief swirled though Knock Out's fields, the emotion so powerful Ratchet swore it almost reached the visible spectrum. "Hn? Yes?"

Ratchet sighed. "They called me. They asked me to come and pick them up and I didn't. I thought what we were doing was more important."

They had stopped in front of the passage to the Megatron's private apartments. Double doors, twice Ratchet's height. Knock Out touched his arm. "Ratchet. It wasn't your fault."

The reassurance meant absolutely nothing to him, and then Knock Out left, leaving Ratchet to face the Emperor alone.

*** *** ***

Just how long Megatron had been sitting in a chair facing the door and grinning smugly, Ratchet didn't know. In a petty part of his processor, he hoped the Decepticon Emperor had been posing that way for hours, waiting for Ratchet to walk in. In a more reasonable part of his processor, he doubted it. If Megatron wanted him, he would have just sent for him. It had happened before. 

Ratchet rolled his optics, he couldn't help it. "You look proud of yourself."

Megatron beckoned with one hand, his claws catching the light and glinting. Even sitting, he was the image of power and physical prowess, his optics were so red they boiled, and the glee his fields bled out was palpable. "And why shouldn't I be?"

There was nothing to be done but play out the script the way Megatron wanted, and Ratchet tried not to let his hands shake as he stepped into grabbing range of the Warlord. Megatron's hands came up, his thumbs rubbing along Ratchet's hip seams and then trailing up over his midsection. Internally, Ratchet called up his medical programming and triggered an override for a lubrication cycle.

Megatron's powerful engines purred, and Ratchet felt the vibration through the Warlord's questing hands. The sick parody of a caress. "How many?"

"One."

"No matter." Megatron chuckled, darkly. "There will be plenty more litters, dear Ratchet."

The thought was so repulsive that Ratchet shuttered his optics and turned his head away. He had wanted sparklings dearly, planned for them with Pharma. Bought and installed the tank to surprise him. Argued with him about whether they would live in Vos or not. Put shanix away for their future education. Kept the tank throughout all those long millennia of war. It was all ashes now, and the inside of his mouth tasted sour.

"Will they be yours," Ratchet snapped out, "or are you going to pass me off to whichever of your butchers currently happens to be closest to your spark?"

"I haven't decided yet, but I'll admit I'm not very good at sharing." Megatron's claw traced over the seams of his valve panel, and Ratchet shuddered. His other hand released Ratchet's hip. "Go and get on the berth."

"What, Megatron? Not going to rape me on the floor tonight?" Ratchet had to online his optics to give his captor a proper incredulous look, and he was treated to a view of the Warlord smirking up at him, thoroughly amused. "I'm almost seduced."

"There's no need for me to seduce a mech who already belongs to me." Megatron gripped the arms of his chair and pushed himself up, towering over Ratchet, who tried not to shake and failed. He leaned in, and Ratchet could feel the heat radiating off his panels, the Warlord's mouth on his audial, the low rumble of his voice. "But don't lose that dry wit, dear Ratchet. It's the most enticing of your many charming features."

Ratchet jerked away, feeling the weight of Megatron's gaze on him as he walked to the berthroom. He knew the Emperor's apartments well, and other than the medbay, they were where he spent most of his time. The Decepticon leader was not a mech used to luxuries, and it showed. There was precious little _in_ his apartments. No decorations, a handful of old war trophies. A berth that was large only out of necessity. Megatron was not a small mech.

He climbed on and knelt, on his hands and knees. It was Megatron's preferred position for interfacing, and if he wanted something else, Ratchet would know in a moment. After a second of hesitation, he triggered his valve panel open, feeling the trickle of lubricants that had been building up behind it spiral warm and thick down his thighs. It wouldn't do to have it closed when Megatron followed him in. Perhaps he could have resisted, but the end result would have been the same, only even more painful and humiliating. He kept his spike retracted. Megatron had never shown the slightest interest in it and if he could help it, Ratchet didn't want those claws anywhere near the sensitive organ.

When he felt Megatron's hand on his aft, the stroke of his clawed thumb, Ratchet jerked involuntarily and heard the Warlord laugh softly in response.

"Get on with it, would you," Ratchet hissed, with less venom than he felt. His voice was shaky. "Before I slip into a recharge cycle."

This time, Megatron's laugh wasn't soft, and Ratchet felt the berth shift under his weight as he climbed onto the it. "I was just admiring the sight of an Autobot who knows his place," he said. Megatron's spike panel was searingly hot as he rubbed it up against Ratchet's bared valve, smearing himself with lubricants. "...and don't worry, you're not going to slip into recharge."

Balling his hands into fists, Ratchet lowered his forehead down to the berth. When he heard the click of Megatron's spike panel opening, he flinched and squeezed his optics shut. If Megatron were a more gentle mech, he wouldn't have been to big, Ratchet himself was hardly small. But as it was, the feel of that thick, heavy spike as it rubbed over Ratchet's aft and dragged back and forth over the outer folds of his valve made him shudder. As Megatron settled into circling his valve rim with the blunt head and smearing himself with more lubricant, Ratchet willed himself to relax. Fighting or trying to force the Warlord out would only make it worse.

That didn't stop him from crying out as Megatron angled himself and filled Ratchet's valve with a single sharp thrust. His legs shook and he tried to pull away, but Megatron's hands were on his hips, and his grip was like a vise. As he squirmed, he could feel the pressure of Megatron's spike against his ceiling node, the heat of him, the first trickles of his transfluid. A gestating sparkling needed it, he reminded himself, to try and put his mind elsewhere. It contained elements necessary for development, and the sire's was better than anyone else's.

It didn't work. Megatron was far to present for Ratchet's thoughts to retreat anywhere. All he could sense was the other mech's fields, and all he could feel was his hands and the pressure of a to-large spike impaling him. He dug his fingers into the berth as Megatron drew back and thrust into him again, and for a time, his world narrowed to the plunge and retreat of the Decepticon leader's spike, the clang of their frames, and the triumphant thrum those flight engines were making above him. 

His tempo increased until Ratchet felt the spike inside him swell with transfluid and heard the building roar of Megatron's overload. As it cascaded over him, Megatron hilted himself deeply inside Ratchet's valve, grinding against his ceiling node, and letting each pulse of hot, thick transfluid wash against it. There was so much it felt like the spray from a washrack, and Ratchet couldn't help but to wonder if Megatron had been modded at some point. As he coasted down, he pulled his spike free, letting the last few pulses spurt across Ratchet's aft and thighs. 

Megatron made a pleased noise and patted the small of his back, moving to lay on the berth. His expression was smug, his optics half-shuttered, and his fields satisfied.

"Happy with yourself?" Ratchet hated the thought of trapping Megatron's spill inside of him, but he didn't want to feel it running down his thighs all night either, and the sparkling needed the nutrients in it. In the end, he snapped his valve panel shut. 

Megatron grinned up at him. "Immensely."

Ratchet snorted, pushing himself up and starting to slide off the berth. His legs were shaky and his frame ached, but damned if he was going to--

Megatron caught his arm. "Going somewhere, dear Ratchet?"

"You know damn well that I'm going to crawl out of your berth and recharge on the floor."

"While you're carrying the Emperor's sparkling? No." Megatron gestured. "Lay down. Right here. Against my side."

"If you think--"

"It wasn't a request." Megatron's hand tightened, and his optics flashed.

Ratchet weighed his options, but in the end, all he could do was comply. Megatron would get his way, one way or another, and it was easier to obey. He eased himself down, and with great hesitation, let his head rest on the Warlord's shoulder plating. Megatron's arm wound around him and gripped Ratchet's aft possessively, it smeared through the transfluid still clinging to him, but the Warlord didn't seem to mind.

Megatron had been right about one thing, because Ratchet didn't recharge at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess there's not a lot to note here except that KO really is in over his head and that I appreciate comments.

In the morning, before he was allowed to go to the medbay, Ratchet endured yet another of Megatron's assaults.

He had been hovering on the edge of recharge without quite falling under. The Decepticon leader's fields were smothering, and Ratchet was completely enveloped in them. His systems, sensing danger or violence, had simply refused to shut down. When Ratchet felt Megatron stir, and the shameless grope of clawed hands across his closed panels, his frame triggered the lubrication override without any need for his input. Survival coding that had taken root, he guessed. Or something to do with the carriage. He would have to investigate.

Heat cascaded off the Warlord's frame as Megatron pushed him onto his back and moved over him, leaning down to nip and suck at his neck cabling. If it had been anyone else, it might have been tender, but considering the circumstances, it felt obscene. Ratchet was still filthy from last night, but his captor clearly didn't care.

"Did Orion have a gestational tank?" Megatron purred against Ratchet's audial, using one knee to nudge his legs apart.

Of course he had had one. Carriage was the privilege of rank (or at least it used to be), and no one had outranked the Prime. Optimus had wanted sparklings too, perhaps as badly as Ratchet had. When the war was over. When there was time and a world to raise them on. Ratchet had spent a truly embarrassing amount of time making lists of the Autobots he considered worthwhile sires, with the intention of setting Optimus up as soon as he had a chance. It was--

"No," Ratchet lied. "To dangerous."

"What a shame." There was a click as Megatron's spike panel slid away, and Ratchet felt the heat of the organ as it rubbed over his midsection. "How did he like to interface? Do you know?"

"Consensually," Ratchet snapped, glaring up at him and refusing to say more. Megatron was trying to bait him, but Ratchet would not alllow himself to rise to this taunt.

Megatron laughed, gripping Ratchet's wrists and pinning them above the medic's head on the berth. The Decepticon's hips rocked. "Open."

At least it had ended the line of questioning, and Ratchet prayed it would stay buried. Primus, let the dead rest in peace. At the urging, Ratchet opened his valve panel to Megatron's pleased purr and the Decepticon drew back a little, the blunt head of his spike rubbing against Ratchet's anterior node. The firm pressure made him gasp, and his legs jerked. He hadn't intended to react, but it was the closest to a gentle touch he'd been given in months. Lubricant dripped from his bared valve, pooling on the berth below him.

"Do you like that?" Megatron angled his hips, so he could rub the underside of his spike back and forth on the sensitive nub while he kept Ratchet pinned. "Do you want to overload all over your master's spike?"

"No," Ratchet said, growling, and trying to ignore the heat and pressure in his array. "I want him to fragging finish and leave me the hell alone."

"If that's what you want." The head Megatron's heavy spike moved to the rim of his valve and rubbed up and down against it. Ratchet vented slowly, reminding himself that when it came, not to try and push the invading length out. Megatron's knees kept his legs spread, and he was wholly exposed. At the Decepticon's mercy. Which was just the way Megatron liked it.

This time, Megatron took him slowly, easing his spike in so that he filled Ratchet without much pain. Some part of him wanted to protest. The violence was so much easier to bear. He certainly deserved it, for continuing to cling to life when so many others had died. If not for all the cuts and abrasions, the stretch would have been exquisite, even when Megatron had bottomed out inside of him. For a while, Megatron held himself there, slow circles of his hips grinding the blunt head of his spike into Ratchet's ceiling node.

His legs jerked, pressure building inside of him as his engines sputtered and whined. He tried to struggle free from the Warlord's grasp, but there was no hope of that. "Stop! Megatron, damn you, stop it!"

"No," he said, grinning down at Ratchet, who shuttered his optics and looked away. He started to roll his hips slowly, in a mockery of gentleness. Not the normal greedy thrusts as he chased an overload, and he angled his frame so when he was fully inside, a ridge at the base of his spike was pressing into Ratchet's anterior node. "I don't think I will."

"Megatron, please!" He was fighting now, despite his vow that he wouldn't, and his vocalizations were spiked and increasingly panicky. It was completely irrational. An overload was just another physical reaction, it had no emotional context, but the thought of overloading while he was impaled helplessly on the spike of Orion's murderer sickened him. "For Primus' sake, don't do this! Stop!"

He didn't, and the needy noise that keened out of Ratchet's vocalizer was as humiliating as anything else he had suffered at the hands of his captors. Megatron leaned down, crushing his mouth against Ratchet's, hooking his bottom lip with a sharpened dental chip and sucking at the energon that welled up there. His hips rolled, and Ratchet's building overload was rapidly eclipsing the pain of the abrasions in his valve. "The sooner your tight little valve overloads around me, the sooner it's over."

"Frag you!"

"You already are." Megatron leaned down, his hips moving at a gentle, languid pace as his mouth closed over Ratchet's neck cabling again. 

Energon was dribbling out of the corner of Ratchet's lip, but Megatron was still pinning him and he couldn't wipe it away. As Megatron filled him fully again, putting delicious pressure on both nodes at once, he lost his grip on his resolve and he shook under the Decepticon as overload hit him. Ratchet felt his valve spasm, clenching down around the length inside him, and trying to milk it for transfluid. His hips ground upwards, pressing up greedily against Megatron, as though he would take whatever the other mech would give.

Megatron was laughing richly, thrusting eagerly into Ratchet as the medic thrashed beneath him. "Do you want me to overload inside you?"

"I don't want you to overload at all, you monster! You by-blow of Unicron!"

He felt the swell of Megatron's spike inside him, heard the roar of his engines, and felt the first pulses of transfluid. Unlike the previous night, this time the Warlord pulled free (and Ratchet heard himself whimper as Megatron did). He released one of Ratchet's wrists, gripping his spike and pumping it, letting the heavy spurts of hot, silvery transfluid spray over Ratchet's chest, his windshields, his face. Ratchet's free hand shoved at Megatron's plating, trying to push him away, but it was like trying to move a mountain. Finally, he collapsed back against the berth, utterly drained.

Megatron chortled, patting Ratchet's hip and rising from the berth. "A good look for you, medic."

"I hate you," Ratchet gasped, for want of a better reply, and he snapped his panel shut, turning away and curling in on himself. He stayed that way a long time, though at some point, he realized Megatron must have left. To do what, he didn't know. Ratchet supposed running a burgeoning Empire was a busy job. There were more Decepticons returning to the planet daily, and the leaders of the Neutral colonies were tripping over themselves to ally themselves with Decepticons - for fear of being the ones conquered next.

Ratchet wondered if Megatron would claim his sparkling publicly. If he would polish him up and show him off for the cameras, to taunt any of the Autobots who were still free. He wondered if he would be rescued, or if all he had to look forward to was spending every night in Megatron's berth. He wondered if he even wanted to be rescued. He certainly didn't deserve it.

When Knock Out sent a concerned ping over the comm, Ratchet didn't bother to reply. The second ping informed Ratchet that the other medic was going to come looking for him, and that demanded a response. Knock Out certainly must have known what was going on, but Ratchet had no intention of letting him see him like _this_. He sent a reply, telling Knock Out he was on his way, and slowly, he eased himself off the berth.

He wondered who cleaned Megatron's apartments, he had never seen them. But the rooms were always immaculate when Ratchet returned to them at night, despite any mess Megatron had left the night before. The transfluid clinging to his frame was dry, and Ratchet realized he must have been laying there longer than he thought. He checked his internal chronometers and noted that it was past midday.

No one had yet said anything about him using Megatron's washrack, and Ratchet had no intention of leaving the apartment without doing so. The situation was humiliating enough without having to walk around covered in Megatron's transfluid. With a wave of his hand, Ratchet turned the heat of the water up as high as he could tolerate and stepped under the stream.

It took at least an hour for him to clean himself off, and each time he thought he was finished, he found more of Megatron's filth either on or in his frame. The water running off him was silver-grey as it sluiced down the drains and he tried not to look at it. As he stepped out of the washrack, he realized that walking wasn't going to cut it, but at least his tires didn't ache, so he transformed when he left the apartments and drove towards the medbay.

*** *** ***

The first thing Knock Out did was make him sit down on a medical berth and fuss over him until he drank two cubes of energon. It was a surprisingly high grade, but the medic was part of the officer cadre, and he was probably entitled to whatever grade of evergon he wanted. Starving himself to make a point wasn't going to help matters - especially not now that he was carrying, and Ratchet watched his energy levels climb as drank the first cube without tasting it.

In the second one, he noticed a strange, sweet scent and then a chalky aftertaste. Primus--

He looked up at Knock Out, who had come to edge of the medical berth with a small container of nanite gel. Ratchet didn't need to wonder where it was going. It had become part of the morning routine. Or in this case, the afternoon one. "Did you mix jellies into this?"

"Oh! Yes. It covers up the taste of the metal supplements." He raised an eyeridge at the look Ratchet was giving him. "Don't give me that look. They're foul."

"I'm not an adolescent, Knock Out."

"Don't worry," he said, with a light laugh, "they taste just as bad no matter how old you are. May I take a look?"

Ratchet grumbled and clicked his valve panel aside. A second later, he felt Knock Out gently part his valve folds to slide one finger inside him and the light spray of a topical painkiller. Next came the nanite gel, which felt blissfully cool on the raw dermal mesh. 

"We're done," he said, frowning. "Close up."

"Thank you. Knock Out."

"You're welcome." Ratchet saw Knock Out chew the thin line of metal that technically classified his bottom lip and then release it. "I'm going to talk to him."

"Mmmmm. Good." Ratchet sipped at the second cube and set it back down. "Tell him to stop raping me. That would be a good start."

"I'm going to phrase it bit more... diplomatically then that." Knock Out handed Ratchet a datapad. Something about categorizing organ salvage. It was the kind of grunt work he would have once considered beneath him and handed off to a nurse, but he was grateful for it now. Mindless work was exactly what he wanted to do. He started flicking through the screens as Knock Out went on. "Maybe something along the lines of what's best for the health of his new Heir."

Ratchet stopped dead, dread curling through his fields, one finger poised over the datapad. He stared up at Knock Out, shorter than him when he was sitting. "Did he say--"

"Well, no. Not _yet_ , but if you don't think he's going to use this as political leverage and emotional blackmail against Starscream--"

"Primus." Ratchet realized that his free hand had come to rest on his midsection. Regardless of where it had come from, the life he was carrying was still the first spark created since the Well had shut down. It deserved better than being a pawn in Deception murder games.

"It's only a matter of time until he decides to make a public announcement. I mean, do you _really_ think he can resist humiliating the Autobots or throwing Screamer off balance? There's--" Knock Out cleared his vocalizer. "--you know, a betting pool."

Ratchet couldn't help the annoyed, or perhaps disgusted, noise that came out of his engines.

"--but it's all for nothing if you lose the sparkling. I've already told him that an announcement before the first fifth of carriage would be premature." Knock out tapped his fingers on the berth. "Does he feed you?"

Ratchet heaved out a sigh. "Is this really necessary?"

"Stop being a scrap patient and answer the damn question," Knock Out drawled out, his faceplates wearing his best stern look. "I'm your doctor."

"No," said Ratchet, resisting the urge to tell Knock Out that he wasn't really a doctor. He needed to teach the other mech, not antagonize him. "He doesn't. Sometimes what's left of a cube. His transfluid, that's it." 

Ratchet would have been starving if Knock Out hadn't been giving him energon, and he wondered if Megatron knew. Or if he cared. Maybe it was just something he expected his subordinates to handle, though Ratchet's need to intake was only going to increase as the carriage went on. He wanted to change the subject, and found something immediately. "--and I can't make any sense of your sorting system, Knock Out. It's a complete disaster."

"What? No it isn't. I'm sorting them by the previous owner's frame weight and preferred alt-mode. You're looking for similarities to and comparable weight with tanks. How is that a disaster? All you have to do is rank them."

Ratchet sighed. "You should be taking a generic inventory for things like this."

"Well, yes," Knock Out said in acknowledgment. "That would be _true_ , if these weren't all for the same mech."

"How is _one_ mech going through so many t-cogs?! What the frag is he doing with them?! Eating them!? It's a complete waste of resources. How are you even allowing--"

Knock Out held up one hand and just shook his head, hesitation and fear creeping into his fields. 

This was apparently something that wasn't up for discussion.


	4. Chapter 4

Knock Out left Ratchet in charge of the medbay while he went to talk to Megatron.

He didn't come back.

Ratchet pinged him around midnight and got no answer. When he'd been captured, Soundwave had emptied his subspace, but left his comms intact. He was free to contact anyone he liked, though he didn't dare to try. The spymaster _wanted_ Ratchet to use his comm to go looking for other Autobots, or for Autobots to be stupid enough to come looking for him. Ratchet rarely used it out of fear of being party to another Autobot's capture. He stayed off the comm except to talk to Knock Out or to answer Megatron or Soundwave's summons.

He had spent most of the afternoon working, which was the easiest way to take his mind off his situation. 

It was hard to be entirely comfortable with the idea of returning Decepticon soldiers to the field, but the planet was vulnerable. Megatron's faction was returning as quickly as they could, but the Decepticons were scattered across the galaxy, to distant by far. And Cybertronians, galactically speaking, had few friends. Prejudice from organics was rampant, to say nothing of the Consortium, the Galactic Council, and other groups who were actively hostile.

Cybertron was a valuable, resource rich planet that was woefully short on defenders. If the Decepticons could hold it, he would have to accept that for now. Better than them all ending up on a Consortium dissection table and sold for parts. 

The Decepticons also seemed to realize that Ratchet didn't have access to Darkmount's computers, which meant he couldn't update their medical files or inform Soundwave if they came to him. Ratchet suspected fear of being thought of as weak or cowardly (and being subsequently culled) kept most of rank-and-file soldiers from coming to Knock Out with minor health issues. Instead, they hid them hoped they didn't cascade into _major_ health issues. Most of the day involved correcting pulled pistons, doing minor welds, protoflesh grafts, and replacing broken dental chips.

When he wasn't working on the latest Decepticon who had a cramp in his tanks or a popped strut, he sat at one of the desks and set up the medical exams for Knock Out, though he was forced to rewrite entire sections on state hospital procedures and Iaconian medical laws that were no longer relevant. Primus, how long had it been since--

"Heya, Ratch. Heard you're preggo."

The ridiculous Earthisim startled him out of his work mindset, and he found himself looking up at a wall of purple and black. Red optics, a remotely handsome medium-weight frame. Tires and sharpened rims instead of door-wings that were popular with Autobots. Barricade.

Ratchet sighed, and out of reflex, swept the Decepticon with a medical scan. It came back yellow-green, the car needed body work done. "Yes, Barricade. I'm extremely pregnant. When did you get back to Cybertron?"

"Last night." He reached into his subspace and produced a cube, which he set on the desk in front of Ratchet. "Place looks good. Megs really outdid himself this time, huh?"

It would have been rude not to accept it, so Ratchet took it and slid it into his own subspace, even if he had no intention of drinking even a drop. Not until he could test it for poison.

"That's certainly one of way of putting it," Ratchet said. Megatron had wasted most of the Lock's power cyberforming Earth, and while there had been enough left to revive Cybertron's planetary core, the Lock had sputtered out while planet was still in ruins. "Knock Out isn't here."

"Hm. A'ight. You gonna get, uh, fat?"

"Cybertronians don't 'get fat', Barricade." Ratchet rolled his optics and wondered if Barricade could tell how much his time on Earth had influenced his speaking patterns. Maybe, like Knock Out, he'd had a fascination with human culture. "The medical term is 'gravid', and no. It's not likely. The litter is very small and I already have a large enough frame to accommodate it."

"How small we talkin' here"?"

"One."

"So then," Barricade said, "you aren't _extremely_ pregnant at all."

"It's normal for a first carriage."

"Bet Megs was disappointed."

"Not the word I would use." Ratchet glanced up at Barricade, trying to figure out why the conversation was continuing and wondering how much being the Emperor's personal berth pet would protect him from being casually assaulted. Had Barricade been trying to buy him with that cube? Justifying something to himself?

When he'd been captured, the Decepticons who had found him had taken turns before they'd dragged him to Megatron in chains. His valve, his spike, his mouth. It was the reward for catching a living Autobot, and leaving his spark untouched was the only mercy they'd shown him. Ratchet hardly remembered it. He had been caught so tightly in the grip of his grief over Optimus' death that the assault may as well have been something he'd read about in a medical paper - he couldn't even recall their names or faces. Other than that, no other Decepticon had dared touch him. Not that he went wandering around the lower levels of Darkmount looking for them. He spent his time in Megatron's apartments, the medbay, and the corridors between them. What was it Megatron had said last night?

"You know, Barricade," Ratchet said, as casually as could manage. "The Emperor doesn't like to share."

He chuckled. "Don't I know it. And, Ratch, I'm fragging flattered, but I just came to see KO. I need him to give my crew a quick tune up, and I've been having problems with my shoulder joint, but Megs is putting spike to him. So I'm gonna wait."

"I-- he's _what?!_ "

Barricade raised an eyeridge. "Y'know, I thought you'd be framiliar with the concept." He raised his hands and made an obscene gesture.

"Primus! Stop that! If you're going to act like an adolescent, you can wait outside!"

"Naw."

"Unbelievable." Ratchet scowled and Barricade grinned. No wonder Knock Out hadn't come back. There was not, he swore to Primus, a single Decepticon with even the slightest modicum of self-awareness. Still, if Barricade wanted to gossip-- "How long after Breakdown's death did _this_ nasty business start?"

Barricade raised an eyeridge. "Whaddaya mean, 'after Breakdown's death'?"

*** *** ***

It meant absolutely nothing, or so Ratchet tried to tell himself. 

Unlike humans, who had largely seemed to consider monogamy the default, very few Cybertronian relationships were exclusive. Even the cojunx ritus didn't guarantee it - Primus knew that he Pharma hadn't been exclusive during any part of their relationship, a set-up they had been mutally happy with. Monogamy was something partners negotiated, if they wanted to - though they rarely did. He rubbed the oath-glyph carved into his second-last finger, he didn't want to think about Pharma, about his fluttering wings and perfect hands and his clever mouth.

Perhaps Breakdown had been intrigued or aroused at the thought of his cojunx riding Megatron's spike. Perhaps he hadn't cared. Perhaps he had joined in.

Whatever it was, or had been, it was certainly none of Ratchet's business.

...and yet, there was something in the way Barricade talked about it that left him uncomfortable. How he hadn't denied it was 'nasty'. The way he had described the act as occurring almost entirely of Megatron's volition. How it had gone beyond the Decepticon's normal rough manner of speaking.

There was nothing to be gained by involving himself in it, and common sense told him to stay in his goddamned lane. But Ratchet's natural busybody tendencies could not be denied.

At some point during the early hours of the morning, Barricade told Ratchet to get some recharge, and that he would watch the door. Ratchet was wary, but to weary and run-down to care what might or might not happen. They had exhausted all venues of conversation by that point, and Barricade was smarter than he looked, Ratchet hadn't been able to get him to mention the fate of any Autobots he might know of, even in passing.

He crawled into a medical berth and recharged fitfully and dreamlessly, awakening to a ping from Knock Out that told him the other medic was on his way back.

Ratchet wouldn't have needed a medical scan to know something wasn't right. Knock Out's to-clean frame and the nicks in his paint told him what had happened. He scanned him anyways, and when he saw the red flash of the tear in Knock Out's valve, he frowned. 

"Barricade," Ratchet snapped, "get out."

"Hey! You can't--"

"That wasn't a request!" Ratchet pointed at the door, and his voice was the most commanding it had been in months. "We'll be with you in a moment, but for now, get _out_."

Barricade looked to Knock Out, who nodded. He nodded back, tossed off a mocking salute to Ratchet and left, the door hissing closed behind him. Ratchet glared at his back, then turned to face Knock Out.

"Get on the medical berth."

"Really, Ratchet, it isn't as bad as all that--"

"I'll be the judge of that." He patted the berth, the same one Knock Out put him on every morning, and then went to collect the nanite gel. "Lay down and don't be a scrap patient."

Knock Out did as he was told, folding his hands over his midsection and turning his head to one side, his legs spread just enough to allow medical access, the position was long-practiced. Ratchet wondered who had been doing this for him before he had come along, and realized it had probably been Breakdown. He tried not to judge either mech, Primus frowned on those who disrespected the dead, but who would willingly let someone do this to their cojunx?

"Knock Out," he said gently. "Your panel."

"Oh, right." Knock Out laughed nervously, triggering it open. "Of course."

There was energon pooling behind it and it spilled out onto the berth as the seams irised open. Using a cloth of soft mesh, Ratchet cleaned him off, finding himself utterly unsurprised to see the racer's elaborately modded valve and biolights arranged to look like racing stripes. The pulses of light drew the optic to his anterior node, which shifted though different gradients of red as each pulse connected with it. He had to admit it looked good, and if he had been a bit younger, or the situation had been different, it probably would have excited him.

"There's a tear," Ratchet said, gently.

"I know." Knock Out kept looking the other way.

"I'm going to fix it," Ratchet said, watching Knock Out's face, since his fields were drawn in to nil, "but I need to seal it. Just the gel won't hold it. To do that I'm going to have to put something inside you, a tool, my fingers. Is that alright?"

He nodded.

Ratchet lubricated a tiny welder and spread Knock Out's valve folds, sliding a finger inside him first to apply a painkiller, and noting that they were swollen in a way that had nothing to do with arousal. He felt the flutter of calipers around the digit. Primus, Knock Out probably had vibrating attachments too.

"Like what you see?"

"It's incredibly flashy, and the thing is, I don't understand youth culture at all." Ratchet shook his head. "Back in my day, we didn't have all these fancy mods. We had to interface uphill, both ways. In the rain."

That got a laugh out of Knock Out, even if it was bitter and it made him wince. Ratchet felt the calipers flutter again.

"What did Barricade want?" Knock Out asked as Ratchet withdrew his finger and eased the welder inside. 

"He needs you to take a look at his team, and he fragged up his shoulder, but he's not dying. He can wait until we're good and ready." Ratchet hesitated. "Knock Out, how long has this been going on?"

Knock Out let a long silence stretch out into awkwardness. 

"Did... Breakdown know?"

"Of course he knew!" Knock Out snapped, his optics flashing as he turned his head back to face Ratchet. "Primus, you Iaconian mechs, just because he was in the worker-caste doesn't mean he was mentally deficient!"

"I didn't mean it that way," Ratchet said, keeping his tone gentle. He reached out with his fields tattered as they were, trying to be soothing. He sealed the tear, and Knock Out gritted his dental chips despite the painkiller, then relaxed. "It just seems, that as your cojnux--"

"Oh, _please_." Knock Out propped himself up on his elbows as Ratchet slid the welder free. "Do you honestly think Megatron would have given us permission for the cojunx ritus if he thought for one second that it would limit his access to my valve? Primus, Ratchet, he took me on our Joining-night."

Ratchet didn't even know where to begin. "Permission? You needed Megatron's _permission_?"

"What? Of course we did." Knock Out looked incredulous. "You have a cojunx too. Didn't you ask for Optimus' permission? Didn't he, with one of you, I mean--"

"No!" Of course, he and Pharma had been cojunxes long before the war had broken out, and long before Orion had become a Prime. Their romantic relationship had spanned (give or take) another five hundred thousand stellar cycles before they had even given each other their oaths - before Orion had even been Forged, but still. "Knock Out, no! That's... it's not right."

It was, after a fashion, both traditional and polite to ask long-term lovers, old friends, and carriers or sires for their endorsement and approval before performing the cojunx ritus. Pharma's carrier had still been alive at the time, and Ratchet had spent a great deal of time, energy, and shanix wooing the mech, who had been thoroughly distraught over the thought of his progeny being Joined to a mech who couldn't fly. To say nothing of the fact that Ratchet's spark had come from the Well instead of from a distinguished and traceable line of nobility. Being wealthy and politically connected to the Prime had helped, even if the amount of money Ratchet had spent on gifts to Pharma's carrier had nearly equaled the cost of the gestational tank. The fact that Megatron had twisted the tradition up to suit his own ends didn't surprise Ratchet. It was--

Knock Out cut off his train of thought. "--but that's just because you two were friends? Like Megatron and Soundwave."

"For Primus' sake, Knock Out, the nature of my relationship with the Prime doesn't matter here! Optimus never... he never raped anyone on their Joining-night!" _Or ever_ , Ratchet wanted to add, but he was yelling now, and he realized he shouldn't have been, because Knock Out flinched.

"That isn't what happened." Knock Out looked away again. "That's not what it was."

"Look me in the optics and tell me it's what you wanted," Ratchet said, "and I will have nothing but respect for your choices."

Knock Out turned back to him, he was venting hard, his cooling fans clicking like he had just been racing. Ratchet immediately regretted dragging all this out into the open. Slag Megatron and slag the entire Decepticon Cause! Knock Out was too _young_. 

The racer didn't say anything, and Ratchet put his clean hand over Knock Out's. The ones with the oath-glyphs. "You didn't have to do that for me."

It broke the silence, and Knock Out snorted derisively. "Why not? I've done it for Starscream, and I don't even _like_ him."

"Primus, spare my spark from young mechs."

"I still love Breakdown, Ratchet. I wanted--" Knock Out chewed on the sliver of his bottom lip. "--I wanted a lot of things, for after the war. I wanted more time."

"I know," Ratchet said, and he was struck by the realization that he was a suitable target for this sort of confession. Knock Out had probably never admitted it to another Decepticon, maybe not even to Breakdown himself. There was the present tense again, but Ratchet dismissed it out of hand. Mechs grieved in different ways. "It's alright, Knock Out."

"It's not. It's really not."

"I know that too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone grieves differently. 
> 
> Ratchet went numb. Knock Out strapped his cojunx's freakishly reanimated murder-corpse to a table on the Nemesis. Barricade doesn't know about Cylas, by the way, only about Megatron's penchant for fucking his subordinates. 
> 
> ...but anyways, different strokes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet tries to do right by the other medic and pays the price, literally and figuratively.

Ratchet went outside to see Barricade and his crew, who were milling around in the courtyard on the eastern side of Megatron's citadel in Kaon. 

No one tried to stop him.

The Omega Lock had cleared skies which had still been boiling with the radiation of Cataclysm-class weaponry both sides had launched, and the sun was coming up over the ruins. It wasn't like a sunrise on Earth. Cybertron's atmosphere was much thinner and it had never been intended to support organic life. There was little in the way of cloud cover or the washes of warm, rich color that Ratchet had gotten used to on Earth. In a way, it made him feel homesick. As the light warmed his plating, he noticed that the gate at the far end of the courtyard was open. He could transform, and run for it, if only he dared.

He didn't. No good could come of that.

"Where's KO?" Barricade asked as he approached. Two of the Decepticons behind him stood up. His crew, Ratchet guessed, and Barricade waved them off with a gesture.

"Recharging," Ratchet said. "I came down to have a look at your shoulder, but I need something from you."

Barricade looked him up and down, considering. "Nothin's free," he said, after a moment.

"You gave me the cube."

"That was for the, uh, lil' one."

Ratchet kept his exasperation internal. "Is shanix any good to you?"

Barricade shook his head. "Not like you got any, but no."

"How about silver?" Ratchet asked. "I have silver."

Before the planetary fall, silver had been the currency of choice for Cybertron's barter economy. It had plenty of industrial and... less practical uses - including engex refining, and mechs who wouldn't acccept Senate-sponsored credit sticks almost never turned up their finials at silver. The Decepticons still traded heavily in it, he knew that from Jazz' old reports - when the other mech had been around to give them.

"Bars or sticks?"

"Bars."

Barricade crossed his arms and tried to look casual, but Ratchet sensed that he had gotten his attention. "How much we talkin' here?"

Ratchet sighed. "Half a million? Give or take."

The Decepticon whistled, another Earthisim. Cybertronians didn't normally vocalize like that. "Frag me blind, Ratch. Where in the merciful slaggin' hell are you keeping half a million in silver? Got it tucked into your subspace?"

"No," Ratchet glared at him. He told himself that Barricade wouldn't hit him. Not while he was carrying the Emperor's Heir. "Don't be an idiot. It's in a private vault. At the Cobalt Charter Bank."

"We did a proper smash and grab on the goddamn Iacon Hall of Records and you think a _bank_ survived?"

"The private vaults would have been hard to reach, and days of work to cut open. The Hall was opened, _purposely _, to send its contents to Earth."__

"A'ight." Barricade leaned in, grinning. "Fair enough. Now that I know about it, what's to stop me from taking it anyways?"

"If you can find it," Ratchet said, "I'll admit I couldn't stop you, but I can give you the exact location of the vault, and the passcodes to enter."

The stamped silver bars had been a gift for Pharma's carrier, who had finally relented and given them his blessing before Ratchet had been forced to hand them over. He'd kept it, always meaning to convert it back into liquid assets and never quite getting around to it. It had still been sitting there, as far as he knew, since the fall of Iacon and the desperate flight from the planet. The city had been bombed into rubble, but the vaults were deep underground. Hard to find, heavily reinforced, and very difficult to loot. He hoped no one would have bothered.

"Color me intrigued. And let it not be said that Barricade don't have a price." He winked salaciously, and Ratchet tried not to roll his optics. "What're you tryin' to buy?"

"I want you to drive to the Academy ruins and bring me a box from my old office. It's in the top right desk drawer." Ratchet held up his hands, showing Barricade the approximate size.

"Hn. Might have to run that by Soundwave. What's in it? A weapon?"

"Medical chevrons."

"What?"

"They're used in graduation ceremonies," Ratchet explained.

"... and they're worth half a fraggin' million to you?" Barricade squinted in such a way that Ratchet realized any further explanation would inevitably be lost on him.

"Can you get them, or am I wasting my time?" Ratchet wondered how far he dared to go with this. If Barricade attacked him, what would he do? Comm Soundwave, he decided, and hope the spymaster took his side. No matter what though, he couldn't back down now. "I'm sure there's no shortage of Decepticons who could find a use for that silver."

"Naw, you're not." Barricade glanced over his shoulder, grinning at his crew. "Get your goddamn stupid afts up. We're goin' for a drive."

*** *** ***

As he headed for the Emperor's chambers, Ratchet realized that after being numb for months, he had forgotten how _good_ it felt to be angry.

...and by Primus, he was angry.

When the doors to Megatron's apartments hissed open, he stomped inside and crossed the room to where the Decepticon leader was waiting, opened his hand, and slapped him across his face with all the strength he could muster. Megatron's head turned, if only barely. He could certainly have stopped it, but either he hadn't seen it coming, or he hadn't expected it from Ratchet.

"How _dare_ you!?"

Megatron caught Ratchet's wrist and pulled it away, his engines revving dangerously. The heat of his frame cascaded over Ratchet as he loomed over him. "You'll have to clarify just what I've done now, medic. We have something of a storied history at this point."

"You know damn well what you've done! Maybe you've justified what you do to me, but your own followers deserve better!"

With a flick of his arm, Megatron threw Ratchet backwards. He lost his balance, landing hard on his aft and wincing. His foot came down so hard between Ratchet's legs that the floor shook. Ratchet must have been even more done with Megatron's slag than he originally thought, because the fear didn't come. He pushed himself up, into a sitting position.

"Knock Out is an adolescent! How could you do that to him!? He followed you! He _trusted_ you! How many others are there!?"

"As many as I wish." Megatron's fields were bleeding hot fury. The Warlord had struck him casually before, but Ratchet was sure he was about to be seriously beaten. One hand covered his midsection, protectively. "You're in _no_ position to dictate who I take to my berth. An Emperor can do as he pleases."

"I remember when you said that about the Primes! Or was your rebellion nothing more than an excuse to put yourself on the throne!?"

Megatron growled, his tone derisive. "The Primes were tryants."

"Not Optimus!"

"He took what was rightfully mine!"

"And..." Ratchet's engines sputtered and he tried to back away. To put some distance between himself and Megatron, for all the good it would do. Primus! What was he doing? How had he imagined this going, in his head? "...and now you're taking what you think was _his_? Is that it?"

Ratchet started to get up, and Megatron's foot came down on his chest, pushing him back down against the floor. His optics glowed, like the surface of a smelting pool. "Do you know what Knock Out was, before he was a Decepticon?"

"It doesn't matter," Ratchet said, using his free hand to try and brace himself. His ventilations were struggling, the pressure was making it hard to cycle air.

"A whore." Megatron looked smug, as though he was revealing some great, dark secret. "A Senator bought his spark from hawkers at the Well and had him built so he could be passed around and bent over high-caste berths at parties."

"I don't care what was!" Ratchet grimaced, but he had come this far, why not see it through? What was the worst Megatron could do? Rape him? Kill him? "He taught himself medicine! And Primus knows why, but he saved _your_ life! Probably dozens of times! What was your movement even about, if not that!?"

"He taught himself to be useful enough that we didn't leave him behind when the planet fell. He tried to kill me."

"I can hardly blame him," Ratchet said, clenching his fists. " _I_ want to kill you."

Megatron grinned widely, the threat of violence transmuting into the threat of something else entirely. "That's no way to talk to the sire of your sparkling."

"How Orion ever could have admired you, I'll never understand--"

The foot on his chest lifted and the Warlord practically fell on him. Ratchet grunted under the weight and wished he'd thought to start a lubrication cycle before he'd thought to start an argument. Panic shot through his fields as he felt claws slide into the seam of his valve panel, and he retracted it before Megatron could tear it off - the Emperor might tell Knock Out not to replace it. Silently, he triggered the override, but he knew he wasn't going to be nearly wet enough to take Megatron's spike, and when it filled him, he couldn't mute the scream of pain.

Megatron was to big and to heavy, and he took Ratchet like he was a beastformer in rut. His fields incandescent and his frame was to hot. Each thrust ripped another scream out of his vocalizer and Ratchet could feel something pooling in his valve that wasn't lubricants or pre-fluid. He was torn, he knew, and red-yellow warnings flashed up on his HUD. He sent them to his auto-repair queue, afraid to look at it and praying that Megatron would finish quickly. Each thrust felt like it was going to split him apart.

Sharpened dental chips closed over his throat cabling, and Ratchet felt them pierce, trickles of energon and red-gradient damage reports popping up. He grabbed at Megatron.

"Megatron!" There was no good place to put his hands, and he ending up scraping them over Megatron's chest until they felt raw, leaving scratches and trails of white-grey paint. There was no way to get Megatron's attention over the clang and scrape of their armor and his violent pursuit of an overload. Ratchet felt like his voice sounded small and fragile in the wide expanse of the apartments. "Megatron, don't kill me, please! I'm carrying, it's yours!"

That, at least, got his attention, and the pace of his thrusts slowed a fraction. Megatron leaned up, the pointed dental chips pulling free from Ratchet's throat. The rhythm of his hips was, if not violent, still agonizing, and he leered down, gripping Ratchet's chin in one hand. Megatron didn't even want to overload, Ratchet realized, just to hurt him. To humiliate him, to demonstrate how powerful he was. How weak Ratchet was. How Orion hadn't been able to protect him.

"You _want_ to carry for me, don't you?"

 _No_ , Ratchet thought. _Dear merciful Primus, no_. 

Ratchet's frame heaved with a wheezing ventilation and he nodded up at Megatron. He had to find some way to make this end. He was going to have to comm Knock Out for help - assuming Megatron allowed it, and to layer on the humiliation, the other medic was going to see him covered in Megatron's filth and leavings. Why did it even matter? It was nothing Knock Out didn't already know. Nothing he hadn't seen before.

"I do," he said, desperately, wincing against a thrust that struck his ceiling node, mixing agony with unwilling arousal. Lubricant had begun to flow, and it eased the passage of the Warlord's spike, but the damage was done. Ratchet's legs squeezed involuntarily, trying to pull the Decepticon in or push him out, he didn't know - his energy levels had dropped more than twenty percent since the assault had begun and it was making his head spin. "Please, Megatron, let me give you your sparkling. Let me give you as many as you want!"

Megatron grinned, his voice a heavy rumble. "You'll do better with the next litter, won't you, dear Ratchet?"

"Yes, Megatron, yes." He dug his fingers into Megatron's shoulders. Primus, why wasn't this over yet? "I will, if that's what you want."

The weight of Megatron's frame as he bent down over him again made him gasp, and the increased pace of his hips made Ratchet's vision fritz and glitch. He was in so much pain, he didn't even feel Megatron's spike swell, just the sharp sting of his transfluid as it flowed over the torn mesh of his valve when the Decepticon overloaded inside him. As usual, Megatron pulled free and let the last pulses spatter onto Ratchet's hips and chest. 

The last thing Ratchet remembered, before the energy loss sent him into an automatic shut down, was sending the comm to Knock Out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ratchet/Optimus and past Optimus/Megatron in this chapter.
> 
> tl:dr, no one taught the Prime about birth control, Ratchet is more resourceful than Megatron thinks he is.

Ratchet leaned back into Optimus, rolling his hips into each thrust.

They had, for the moment, a measure of privacy. Arcee and Bulkhead were out patrolling, while Bumblebee had been sent on some special mission to Griffon Rock, the details of which Ratchet was not privy to.

The children had gone on what was called a 'field trip' with their educational establishment. Ratchet was absolutely certain it would end in some sort of disaster or ridiculous misadventure eventually, but for now, they had the base to themselves.

Ratchet's back was pressed into the Prime's chestplates, and he could feel the excitement in his leader's revving engines and the emanations of pure power from deep within Optimus' frame. Their fields were twined together, with no way to tell where one ended and the other began. He shuttered his optics and let the closeness ease his lonliness and homesickness.

Optimus' spike was large, though the stretch felt exquisite as Ratchet ground down against it. One of Optimus' callused, scarred hands caressed Ratchet's node while the other held the base of his spike, stroking it firmly. Ratchet drank in each touch like it was rich, sweetened energon, hovering on the edge of overload, but not wanting to slip over just yet. He needed to cling to the moment a bit longer.

"Ratchet," Optimus' voice was a heavy rumble in his audial, powerful and kind, but just slightly concerned. "I am very close. Should I disengage?"

Ratchet bucked his hips, gripping at Optimus' arms, overload slipping closer just from the sound of his voice. "You had damn well better not."

A few more thursts and shift in their angle let Optimus press into his ceiling node, and the sensation sent Ratchet cascading into overload, spike and valve both. He felt his transfluid spilling over Optimus' hands as the Prime worked him through it, drawing the sensation out, and he reached back to grip Optimus' audial. His valve clenched down, trying to draw his Prime in deeper, and Optimus must have been as close as he had said, because Ratchet felt the spike inside him swell and a moment later Optimus followed him into overload.

Ratchet rode him through it before he came to rest, sighing contentedly, fluids dripping from his valve rim, smearing over the Prime's hips. For a time, all he could do was lay there, listening to the clicking of their cooling fans and feeling the soft vibration of Optimus' engines. His own spike had retracted, but Optimus' was still fully pressurized inside him, and as his head cleared, Ratchet felt it twitch. 

He eased himself off it, slowly. It wasn't an unusual situation, unlike mere mortals, a Prime was tireless. Optimus usually went three or four rounds when they were interfacing and he doubted tonight would by any different. For the moment, Ratchet was to sensitive to let Optimus take his valve again, but he wanted to close his mouth over that wonderful bio-lit spike and lap up the sweet taste of their mixed overloads. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to ping Arcee and make sure she wasn't on her way back--

Before he could do either, Optimus took him by the hips and gently and eased him onto his back, leaning down to kiss him softly, cupping his cheek. "Ratchet," he murmured. "You are so handsome. You were made of light."

"Optimus!" He couldn't help but chuckle, and his hands stroked the Prime's shoulders affectionately. "You don't need to woo an old mech like me, you know."

"I suppose not, but are you enjoying my efforts?" Optimus kissed at his neck cabling, and then his shoulder seams. As his mouth rubbed over seam on Ratchet's chest and then slid lower, the Prime's hands settled to hold his hips. 

Well, if that was what he wanted, then Ratchet had no intention of protesting - he loved the feel of Optimus' mouth on his valve, the way he would suck at his node like it was an energon sweet. He spread his legs a little, feeling the trickle of lubricants and transfluid. Perhaps Optimus liked the taste of their shared pleasure as much as he did, and Ratchet rested one hand on the back of his commander's head. 

To his surprise though, Optimus stopped at his midsection, nuzzling against it. "I will protect them," he said, sounding pleased. "Do not worry."

Whatever he meant, it was lost on Ratchet. The Autobots? The humans? The children? Primus! It was not the right moment to bring any of that up. Confusion must have showed in his face, because Optimus stopped, looking up at him. 

"Optimus," Ratchet said, smiling, "what are you talking about?"

Now it was Optimus' turn to look confused. "Your... sparklings?"

Ratchet blinked, he was sitting up now, the moment had passed. "What!?"

"It is merely that..." Optimus paused, and he sat up too, resting his aft on his heelstruts, the position made slightly less neutral by his still-pressurized and impressively sized spike standing proudly above his hips. He tilted his head, just slightly, like he was embarrassed. "...that when I am inside you, you never wish for me to disengage."

Had _that_ been what he was so concerned about? Ratchet tried to hold his amusement in, but couldn't, covering his face with one hand as he laughed. He immediately felt guilty, because Optimus looked even more embarrassed now. "Optimus." Ratchet reached out and took his hand. "Optimus, it's fine. I have a null-seal on my tank, and a restraining bolt inside, just for good measure. There's no chance of--"

"What--" Optimus interrupted, then paused, and Ratchet instantly felt any possible humor drain out of the situation. "--are those?"

*** *** ***

Ratchet stomped out of the washrack and then stomped even harder over to his workstation. Optimus followed him. They'd cleaned up, but the berthroom was still a mess. That was going to have to wait. Probably until everyone got back, and then they had to make up increasingly elaborate excuses as to why no one was allowed to go exploring, and then the whole situation devolved into wacky comedy.

"Slag the Temple and slag the priests!" Ratchet booted up the computer and swore elaborately at it as it ran through its startup queue. Frag this stupid thing, why was it taking so long? "And slag Zeta too!"

"Ratchet, I don't think--"

"Sit down!" He pointed at the medical berth next to the station, and Optimus sat down, looking wary. Ratchet was simmering with fury. He was pretty sure his fields were going to strip the paint off the base walls. "Primus! This is my fault. I never even thought to check. I assumed they would have put a seal on you when they installed it. Urgh! Those ignorant scrapheaps must have been wetting themselves through their panels at the thought of breeding their way into the next noble House. Who have you been interfacing with?"

"Other than you?"

"Yes, Orion, other than me."

Optimus considered. "Could a litter survive stasis?"

"Highly unlikely, but it's happened before." The computer finally made a noise of acquiescence and Ratchet swore at it again, spooling a cable out and plugging it into Optimus' medical panel. Casual or surface scans didn't tend to be entirely accurate on a Prime, and there was no way they would detect an early or mid-term carriage. The Matrix's energy output caused most of the common types of scans to glitch out or return false readings. He called up a schematic of Optimus' frame, and started taking internal readouts. At the same time, he wondered what he would say to Pharma once he found him. _Sorry, Pharma. I'm supposed to be a world-renowned doctor, but I may have sired a litter like I was an idiot adolescent._

Maybe that would work.

"Prowl. Jazz. Ironhide." A very long pause. "Megatron."

"When you lost your memory?"

"Yes."

Ratchet ground his dental chips and tried to focus on the results of the scan as they returned. "I see. Can I ask--"

Optimus kept his fields and his expression neutral. His voice was quiet. "Most nights."

"Optimus," Ratchet felt his spark twist, turning away from the scans and going to touch Optimus' shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"He..." Optimus smiled weakly, "said you were a mad doctor."

Ratchet grumbled. "Well, he was dead wrong, because right now, I am an _apoplectic_ doctor."

"Ratchet." Optimus looked up at him. "If I am carrying--"

"If you are, we'll deal with it as it comes. For now, wait for the scan to compile."

*** *** ***

Ratchet groaned as he fought his way free of the dream, trying to sit up. No, it wasn't even a dream. It was a deep-memory replay, a symptom of medically induced recharge. He didn't want to see any of it. He wanted to forget. He wanted Orion to be at rest. At least _he_ had been spared this, and Ratchet thanked Primus for small mercies - which seemed to be the only kind the god ever showed.

His vision was blurry, a shapeless mass of grey, but a timer in the corner of his HUD was ticking down towards full functionality. Thirty seconds. With a sigh, Ratchet let his head rest against the berth he was laying on. He felt around with one hand until it came to the edge and brushed against a panel attachment. A medical berth. Knock Out must have come by and scraped him off the floor of Megatron's apartments.

While Ratchet waited on his optics to reboot, he started a full system scan, resolving not to look at it until it fully completed. His auto-repair queue had been cleared, and while he wasn't in pain, his frame felt heavy and stiff.

When his optics rebooted and onlined, he _still_ a saw a mass of grey. Bare girders, stark black stone, and undecorated walls. Darkmount's medbay was not an inviting place, and Ratchet longed for the corridors of the Ark or the warm concrete of the old missile silo. For the company of his friends.

Next to the bed was a datapad that Ratchet guessed had the results of full frame scans. He doubted Knock Out would have left it if the news was bad, so he didn't bother checking it. Not quite yet. He didn't need to know exactly how badly Megatron's latest assault had damaged him. Next to it was a small, flat black box, with a folded wafer of writing-metal on top. Ratchet felt his spark skip.

It took effort, but he sat up, his hands shaking as he reached for it. The wafer first, which he unfolded slowly. It read,

sorry

 

@barricade

The Decepticon's callsign was not all surprising and about as creative, Ratchet assumed, as Barricade ever got. Now it was his turn, he had to hold up his end of their bargain. Not just because he was an Autobot, but because he wanted the Decepticon to know he was trustworthy in case he had to buy something else. He pinged Barricade once to get his attention, and then fired off three more pings, the location of the vault, the identification number, and both passcodes - his own and Pharma's. A minute later, there was a reply of acknowledgement, but not thanks. It didn't matter.

The top of the box still had an ancient, rusting delivery receipt glued to it and Ratchet read it out of morbid curiosity. It had passed through three sets of Academy hands before he had received it in his office. Searchlight, Mist, Weaver. He wondered if they were still alive. He wondered if any of the students from that last class were alive. So many were gone. To many.

He could see the dent in the box where Barricade had wedged his claws in and broken the shipping seals. More than likely, to be sure it didn't contain a weapon or some means to escape, and Ratchet eased the lid open slowly and peered inside.

The chevrons were all broken.

The ones at the top had fared the worst, most of them had been ground into unidentifiable fragments. Ratchet lifted the black mesh cloth that was supposed to be protective, though it was only meant as a scratch guard. It hadn't done slag against the Cataclysm warhead that fallen mere miles from his office. The middle layer was at least identifiable as medical chevrons, if still beyond repairs, and the final layer was--

Ratchet heard his engines rev. Down in the bottom of the box, wedged into the very corner, was a broken chevron, but one split neatly into two pieces. 

He had paid half a million in silver for that chevron, and gently, he tugged all the protective mesh out of the box and carefully wrapped it up. It could be fixed, probably with tools in the medbay, and Knock Out wouldn't even see the seam. Ratchet snapped the box closed and stowed it and the broken chevron in his subspsace, separately.

Ratchet thought back to Barricade's shoulder joint. He'd seen injuries like it a thousand times, in private hospitals and at his public clinic. Especially when tensions had been rising before the war and the Senate had tried to root out the Neutral protestors and loyalist Decepticons. 

Someone had put their foot on Barricade's back and either purposely or accidentally popped his shoulder strut when they tried to stasis cuff him.

Someone like a cop.

...and if they were still watching him, to Ratchet, that was worth a whole lot more than half a million.


	7. Chapter 7

With Optimus and Bulkhead offline, Wheeljack and Ratchet missing, and Bumblebee in the grip of depression so deep he wouldn't rise from his berth, Arcee's team currently consisted of herself and Smokescreen.

Admittedly, there had been better days.

[What's Ultra Magnus like?] Smokescreen pinged her as they drove. The skies over the murdered planet were grey-blue and mostly cloudless, but there were a few wispy strands of white here and there, the Omega Lock hadn't done as much damage to Earth's atmosphere as Arcee had feared.

That meant that the humans who had survived the corona of cyberforming beams had starved or dehydrated to death instead of choking and suffocating on poison, the way Jack had. It hurt to think about. After they had escaped, she had gone back to Jasper, to try and find June, and at least bury her, in the manner that humans cared for their dead, but there was nothing left of the town. Its proximity to the Autobot base meant that it had been hit hardest when Megatron had vented his rage down onto the Earth.

[Very proper. Very by the book.] She turned off the skyway with him, the graceful arc of raised road a product of cyberforming. It was dangerous to be out in the open, but Magnus was taking an even greater risk in leaving the Fleet to come and get them. [Make sure your badge is on straight.]

Smokescreen pulled up beside her. [...and about the whole... Matrix of Leadership, uh, situation?]

Arcee wanted to sigh, but she had no mouth in her vehicle mode.

[Magnus is going to greet you as the Matrix-bearer, and you're going to respond with, 'Magnus, your line is Exalted'. If Jazz is with him, he's going to greet you too, and you're going to answer him with, 'Your spark is a star from the Well'.] Arcee felt like she was back at her old job, teaching the newly Forged, but she was a long way away from that.

[And then?] Smokescreen asked.

[We're going to explain, _very_ gently, that although the Matrix attached, you're not a Prime.] She passed under a copse of petrified trees, the shadows spindly in the failing light. [Then I think it would be best if you offered it to Magnus.]

[Yeah, I think it somehow got hooked into those little attachments Alpha Trion put inside me? To hold the Omega Key? It's pretty much wedged in there sidewise. Completely lopsided. It's hella uncomfortable.]

[The Matrix is the center of the entire universe, so.... maybe let me explain it to him, Smokescreen. We're going to avoid the word 'hella'.]

[Okay, Arcee.] They drove in silence for a time. It didn't last, because Smokescreen asked, [Hey, how do I greet _you_ formally?]

Arcee snorted, and in vehicle mode, it translated into a flutter of engines. [You don't. The Matrix-bearer wasn't supposed to address worker-caste Cybertronians directly, or us, him. We were beneath him. A lower order of being.]

[Optimus was better than that.]

[Optimus was a lot of things. There's the ship, look sharp.]

Smokescreen skidded to a stop and transformed, flipping up into robot mode and immediately starting to fuss over his badge and the Elite Guard bars that flanked it. "Hey, Arcee, but seriously, what did Optimus call you?"

Arcee transformed, and rubbed the base of her finial as she fell into step next to him. "He called me my name, Smokescreen. And he called me his friend."

It was hard not to keep a wary optic on the sky as they crossed the last hundred meters to the Autobot shuttle. They'd been driving for three days, and though they'd seen only a single Vehicon patrol, Arcee was still paranoid. Her tires hurt and her tanks clenched with hunger, but she pressed on.

Starscream was up there somewhere, with the Nemesis and an entire armada. Megatron hadn't taken him back to Cybertron to share in the spoils of victory, hadn't given him his own Autobot as a prize, hadn't even officially acknowledged him as Heir, even though he'd declared himself Emperor. Instead, Starscream had been left behind on Earth to hunt down the survivors of Team Prime. Either he was remarkably bad at his job, he wanted to spite Megatron, or the last few months had been nothing but one long, high-altitude tantrum.

She suspected it was a little bit of each.

As they approached, she felt an identity scan sweep over them and the ship's ramp extended. The sight of the Ultra Magnus and Jazz at the top eased the pressure and fear that had been bearing down on her spark. They'd risked everything to leave the Fleet and come here. Arcee wanted to run to them, but she kept a tight grip on her emotions and forced herself to walk at a normal pace.

Magnus nodded to her, and she squared her shoulders and saluted. His gaze fell on Smokescreen, who had started to salute, but then stopped. "This is the one?" he asked.

Arcee nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I greet the Matrix-Bearer." Magnus saluted, fist to spark chamber, and knelt. Jazz repeated the words and did the same.

"Uh," Smokescreen said, his optics darting between them. He nodded. "You guys have really nice sparks. Like, wow. Good show. Both of you. All rise."

Jazz, who was out Magnus' immediate line of sight, covered his mouth, but nothing could have hidden his rattling engines and flicking door-wings. Arcee wanted to laugh too, by all accounts, it was funny, but there was nothing left inside her that could be roused by humor.

Magnus stood up, towering over them. His expression was unchanged, but then again, he only had two expressions and the other one was just an angrier version of this. "We will sort this out in the air. Once we are out of detection range of a Vehicon patrol."

"We have a third," Arcee said. "Bumblebee. Optimus' scout. He's not with us, but we can't leave without him."

"He can be retrieved, but for now, we cannot remain here." Magnus gestured for them to follow, and she took a hesitating Smokescreen by the arm and led him up the ramp.

*** *** ***

Ratchet swung his legs down from the medical slab and started to get up. As he did, he heard the outer doors of the medbay hiss open and heard the echo of heavy footfalls. Megatron. How long had Knock Out kept him in medically-induced recharge? Was the Warlord coming to get him? It made him even more determined to stand up, at least he could face Megatron on his feet.

"...can't be allowed to happen again. The sparkling is our master's Heir."

Ratchet stopped dead, he didn't recognize the voice, but it was so deep and rich that he felt it in his spinal strut.

"What do you want me to do?" Ratchet heard Knock Out's drawl and heard his lighter footsteps, even if he couldn't see around the wall that gave him the smallest measure of privacy. "You saw the recording. Ratchet provoked him. Attacked him! I wasn't even there."

Ratchet squinted. The recording? Of course Megatron would humiliate him like that. He found himself wondering why he was even surprised.

"Perhaps you _shouldn't_ be here. Then the Autobot wouldn't be tempted to fight with his master over you."

"Well, that all sounds just wonderful," Knock Out retorted acidly, "but I have nowhere else to go."

"You could come with me." Ratchet heard the scrape of metal on metal as a medical tool was picked up and examined. "I've offered you the cojunx ritus before, and my offer still stands. _I_ wouldn't have left you on your Joining-night."

"Breakdown," Knock Out's tone wavered and pitched. Fear, anger, grief, Ratchet couldn't place it. "Did not _leave_ me on our Joining-night."

"Really? Because Lord Megatron told me he offered your cojunx the chance to join you in his berth, to share you between them, and he refused." There was no answer from Knock Out. "I would never do that to you. Just knowing that our Emperor takes his pleasure with your frame makes it all the more appealing to _me_. The mere thought of having you after he does is thrilling."

Ratchet wished he could take back every ill thought he had ever had about Breakdown. If refusing to participate in what had happened to his cojunx had been the only avenue available to him, at least he had done that. At least he hadn't added to Knock Out's humiliation.

"I'm very... flattered," Knock Out said, Ratchet heard his vocalizer wavering again. A short, nervous laugh. "Really I am, but I can't very well leave Lord Megatron without a doctor, now can I?"

There was a low chuckle, and even at a distance, Ratchet felt it in his entire frame. "He has the Autobot, and perhaps that would convince our Lord Emperor to take better care of... what does he call him, 'dear Ratchet'?"

He felt himself grinding his dental chips, and forced himself to stop only with great effort.

"Ratchet is carrying," Knock Out insisted, "and he needs his own physician too. Or have you forgotten? I'm aware that _you_ need a doctor, but you have to at least attempt to moderate. The war's left us short on medics--"

"Then a trial run. Come with me for the trip to Earth. Lord Megatron says it's beautiful now, since it's been washed clean of Unicron's organic spawn. It would be all the better with you at my side and in my berth."

"Earth?! What's on Earth?"

"He wants the Autobots who remain there captured, the Matrix found, and Starscream has failed him at every turn."

"...and he called _you _to hunt them down? Forgive me for saying so, but that seems a bit outside your job description--"__

" _Dear_ Ratchet," called the voice, and Ratchet froze, his feet had been welded to the floor. The dulcet notes of it slid over his spark, caressing it. "I can tell you're awake in there. Do come out, we were just discussing your old friends."

As he felt the grip on him release, Ratchet stepped out from behind the wall. There was no choice but to obey.

He had seen the mech with Knock Out many times, though only in holovids and Decepticon propaganda films, and he had always assumed there was sort of digital trickery involved in making him appear larger than life. It was trivially easy to edit footage to get the result or project the image you wanted. Primus knew that Megatron had broadcast a highly edited version of the battle over the Omega Lock. One that seemed to depict Optimus as willing to sacrifice to the future of Cybertron over a grudge with Megatron and the fate of a handful of organic pets.

...but this was not the case with Tarn. 

He was just as impressive as he looked in the holovids, if not more.

Tarn was Megatron's size, or perhaps only a fraction smaller. Heavy and thick and broad, treads over his shoulders, fusion cannons on his right arm. The frame of a warrior-mech, a living embodiment of the Decepticon ideal. His face was hidden behind a mask shaped like a Decepticon brand, and his optics glowed like hot coals. They raked over Ratchet and stopped on his midsection.

He got the distinct impression that Tarn was smirking.

"May I?" he asked.

Ratchet wanted to muster up some defiance, but as Tarn stepped into arms reach, he realized he was shaking. "You're going to anyways."

"Of course I am." Tarn laughed, and it was even worse without the wall between them. He felt like the Decepticon was touching him everywhere. And then Tarn _did_ touch him, reaching out to caress his hips, stroking the seams with his thumbs, just the way Megatron did when he felt inclined to be gentle. Ratchet looked at his shoulder, the weave of the treads there, and tried not to think of anything as Tarn's hand came to rest over his midsection. "Knock Out says there's just one."

"It's normal for a first carriage." Primus! How many times was he going to have to explain it? "The next litter will be larger."

"You must be honored."

"I wouldn't use those words," Ratchet muttered.

"Perhaps the next litter will be mine." Tarn's thumb stroked over his plating. "You're older than I would have liked, but still handsome. And since your spark came from the Well, there will be no... unhappy surprises in your CNA. Your litters will resemble their sire. As it should be."

"Or they'll resemble me, and Lord Megatron doesn't like to share."

"I'll endeavor to conceal my disappointment should either prove to be the case."

"Tarn," Ratchet forced himself to look up at Tarn's face - or what passed for it anyways. "Those old stories, about a some noble or Prime's prized breeding line spawning a monster, they're just urban legends."

Tarn's hand came up to cup his cheek, and Ratchet stumbled as the Decepticon drew him closer, leaning down over him. They were close enough to kiss - Ratchet's lips nearly touching the slot in his mask, which seemed to somehow absorb Tarn's ventilations, making him appear very still. Internally, he pulled up the medical override and triggered the lubrication cycle, it had taken longer than he had guessed for one of Megatron's followers to--

"I can tell you, with absolute certainty," said Tarn, "that you're mistaken about--"

"Tarn!" Knock Out cut him off. The other medic had shrunk back enough that Ratchet had almost forgotten he was there, but he seemed to have found his voice. "You came here to get your t-cog replaced, not to molest Autobots in my medbay!"

Tarn chuckled, and the dark intent of it made Ratchet's knees shake. "Then what a shame there's no time for both." 

When the Decepticon dropped him and turned to Knock Out, he offered the medic his arm and Knock Out took it. They went into the surgical theater, and the door hissed closed behind them. The moment they were out of sight, Ratchet's knees finally gave in, and after the first sob had left his vocalizer, he found he couldn't stop the rest from following.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and then, absolutely no one was surprised when it turned out Tarn had a weird sexual fixation on Megatron.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tarn/Megatron/Ratchet in this chapter.
> 
> In case you're wondering why Jazz doesn't know anything about humans, in this AU, he was never on the Ark - having left before the launch to investigate something with his informants (Chapter 1). So he's been running around for the last four million years strangling Decepticons with the Cybertronian equivalent of piano wire. Good times.

Arcee told the story, Magnus and Jazz listened. The journey to the center of the Earth, the confrontation with Unicron, the search for Vector Sigma, the artifacts from Iacon, the Omega Lock. 

She was proud of herself. She managed to get through the whole tale without breaking down into sobs.

Smokescreen spoke about Optimus, solemnly and with great regret. He had used the Phase Shifter to take the Lord Prime's frame deep underground, where the Decepticons could never find it, and perhaps someday, they would be able to come back for it.

Arcee felt her hands shaking in her lap, and then the warmth of one of Jazz's as it closed over hers.

Magnus sat in the shuttle's primary command throne, his chin resting in one hand, listening grimly. "Nonetheless," he said, "we must continue on. I understand that you are prepared to relinquish the Matrix."

"Uh, yeah, I am." After a moment, Smokescreen hesitantly added, "Sir."

"Then it should be done immediately." Magnus rose. "Jazz can bear witness."

Smokescreen nodded eagerly. "Arcee too. She can be my witness."

She cringed, and she heard Jazz sigh. Magnus cleared his vocalizer with a heavy rumble.

"This is," he said, "a spiritually delicate situation. We cannot afford to have the authenticity of a new Prime questioned."

"Okay," said Smokescreen, "but I don't see what that has to do with Arcee. Wouldn't we want as many witnesses as possible?"

"Only one is necessary," Magnus said. "However, to keep anyone from gainsaying the transfer of power, it would be best if the ceremony were not witnessed by any Cybertronians who were... spiritually inferior. Do you understand, cadet?"

Smokescreen was, at times, utterly without guile. He looked up at Magnus and shook his head.

"Her spark was manufactured," Magnus explained, "rather than occurring as a result of carriage or emergence from the Well."

"That wouldn't have mattered to Optimus," Smokescreen said, petulant. Arcee wanted to sink down into her seat, and she willed Primus to take her back on the spot. The fact that they were stalling the appointment over her feelings was unthinkable. Jazz was watching, leaning back in his seat and looking vaguely entertained. "It sure doesn't matter to me."

"It will matter to the priests." Magnus' engines made a noise of disquiet. "I am not trying to insult her. She has been a credit to her caste, certainly she has shouldered a burden no one would have thought possible, but--"

"Okay," said Smokescreen, "I'm gonna stop you right there, because--"

"Smokescreen!" Arcee stood up, shaking Jazz's hand loose. "Just give Magnus the damn Matrix like we came here to do!"

"But Arcee--"

"Not a request."

*** *** ***

Jazz brought her a cube of energon. It was the first one in four million years that hadn't been stolen from a Decepticon mine or filtered through barely adequate human technology. She downed half the cube in gulps, and even though it was basic mid-grade, it tasted rich and sweet to her starved palate. It also made her head spin, and Jazz helped her sit down.

"Sparkling asked you to be his witness." There was a glint of interest behind Jazz's visor. "Something goin' on there?"

"He doesn't know what it means," Arcee said, sighing.

There was a long, grim silence.

"I'm sorry," she said, finally, clutching awkwardly at the cube. "Jazz, I'm so, so sorry."

He slid down next to her, stretching his legs out. "Ain't nothin' for it. Got somethin' for you though, if you wanna hear it."

Arcee nodded. Smokescreen was probably off meditating, or at least trying to. She doubted his efforts were going to satisfy Magnus, but he was going to have to take what he could get. After all, he was going to be the new Prime. And the appointment made sense. He could connect his lineage to not just to one, but two ancient Primes, from when a breeding line had changed owners. It was something few Cybertronians could claim.

Optimus had trained him personally. He was a war hero. A brilliant tactician. A renowned general. Arcee tried to find a source for her disquiet and came up with nothing. Perhaps it was just that no one would ever replace Optimus. She wouldn't be allowed to witness the ceremony, but she replayed the Autobot oath a few times in her head, and hoped Optimus could hear it, somewhere, somehow.

"Prowl thinks he knows where Ratchet is, but you ain't gonna like this next part."

Jazz instantly had her full attention. She felt the days of driving, the hunger, the loneliness fall away. Wherever Ratchet was, she could have driven a marathon to reach him. "Where?"

"Cybertron. In Darkmount."

Arcee's mind raced and her spark ached. Ratchet was tougher than he looked, but heavy and slow, and his coloring made his frame impossible to hide. If the Decepticons had caught anyone, it would have been him. "Is Prowl sure?"

"Sure enough for government work. Couldn't exactly go up to Darkmount's front steps and ring the bell to call on him, but Prowler followed our old pal Barry through a space-bridge a while back and he says the cons picked up some Ratchet's personal effects and looted one of his old vaults. Had the passcode."

"Oh Primus, _no_. Jazz--"

"I know, 'Cee. I know, but we're not exactly in any kind of shape to storm Darkmount--"

There was a flicker of wavering blue energy, and Smokescreen walked through the wall, one hand still toying with the Phase Shifter's settings. Arcee had been wound up so tightly that she almost spilled her drink.

"What are you doing?!" She stood up. "You're supposed to be meditating."

"Yeah," Smokescreen said. "No. I changed my mind. I'm not giving him the Matrix. I mean, I have met some pricks in my time, but Magnus is the fucking cactus."

"Dunno what any of that means," Jazz said, and he was wholly unruffled, "but it's probably true."

Arcee felt the tightening band of a processor ache. "Smokescreen! It's not your decision to make!"

"What? Who becomes the next Prime?" He made a face. "Pretty sure it _is_ my decision to make, what with being stuck to the Matrix and all. He _totally_ disrespected you. Did you hear that slag?" Smokescreen rolled his optics and did (in her opinion at least) a pretty good impression of Magnus' voice. "'You're a credit to your caste.' Arcee, you found Vector Sigma, you kicked Megatron in the face like, four times, you're a credit to _anyone's_ caste."

"That doesn't matter!"

Smokescreen didn't back down. "It would to Optimus!"

Arcee covered her face with both hands. "Jazz, help me."

"You really kick Megatron in the face four times?" Jazz tilted his head towards her, his visor glinted. 

Arcee sighed. "It was... all at once. It wasn't on four separate occasions. You aren't _helping_."

"Then how about this?" Jazz nodded to Smokescreen. "Smokey's right. He says Maggie's not the Prime, then Maggie ain't the Prime."

"The Matrix got _stuck_ to him by _accident_ ," Arcee ground out, gritting her dental chips.

"Naw," Jazz said. "Ain't no such thing as an accident. And, now that we all got the afternoon free, let's go get Bee. See about getting our friends back."

*** *** ***

Ratchet had managed to compose himself by the time that Knock Out came back. He had decided he'd stay in the medbay until Megatron sent for him. The mental state he'd managed to salvage felt fragile, and he didn't want to see Megatron. Not ever again, though he knew that wasn't possible.

He'd been in medically induced recharge for eight days, and he didn't want to know what Megatron had been doing or who he'd been abusing in the meantime.

It felt like an absurd amount of time, more than twice as long as Ratchet would have kept a patient who'd been brought to him with the injuries he'd sustained. Though recharging for so long did explain why his frame felt so heavy, and he felt an equally absurd swell of affection for Knock Out.

The Decepticon hadn't had to do that for him.

_That all sounds wonderful, but I have nowhere else to go._

He wondered if that was the only thing keeping Knock Out here. Then again, Tarn was probably a powerful motivator, even when he wasn't physically present. It was a dangerous universe for a lone Cybertronian.

"How do you feel?" Knock Out asked as he stepped back in, running his energon-stained hands under a stream of disinfectants and then drying them with a mesh cloth.

"You don't want an honest answer to that question," Ratchet said, grumbling and easing himself down into a chair behind the desk. "I want to talk."

Knock Out shrugged. "So talk."

"He brought Tarn here because of what I did, and I'm sorry." Ratchet sighed. "Though not quite as sorry as I'm going to be, I'm sure."

Knock Out was silent for a long moment, trying to be diplomatic, Ratchet guessed. At last, he said, "Megatron brought Tarn here because his ego is fragile and because you hurt him. Now he wants to hurt you." 

"Is Megatron going to send him to Earth?" Ratchet asked, not quite in agreement. Megatron seemed unassailable, and he didn't bother pointing out that Megatron had already hurt him. It wasn't like Tarn could kill Optimus again.

"Tarn seems convinced he will." Knock Out bit his bottom lip, then released it. "Tell your friends to surrender and bring Megatron the Matrix. Give him what he wants and he'll be merciful."

"He won't be," Ratchet said. If nothing else, he was sure of that. Sure that he would end his own life, carriage or not, before willingly dragging another Autobot into this. "...but, I want to talk about you, and then I want you to write your exams. I'll try not to bruise Megatron's ego tonight, so I can grade them tomorrow. Come and sit down."

Knock Out crossed the room and sat, his expression hovering between concerned and amused. "You're not my carrier, you know."

"You weren't carried, but I'm practicing." Ratchet rested one hand over his midsection. "Tell me about Breakdown."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Start with how you met."

*** *** ***

When Ratchet found Tarn waiting in Megatron's apartments, he was not at all surprised. The two mechs were sitting together and drinking, and he couldn't help but wonder if engex made Megatron more violent - though Ratchet doubted the Warlord was actually inebriated, or even on the way there. Megatron would never allow anyone to see him in a weakened state, one either real or perceived. To even see him drinking openly was new.

There was music playing, the second movement of the Ode to Vistas, if Ratchet had to guess. It was by Occulus, the Songbird of Vos. That was new too.

There was a straw in Tarn's engex. Maybe it was true that he never took the mask off, though Ratchet had expected him to remove it in the privacy of Megatron's apartments. The drink sparkled with some kind of artificial sweetener, because like any good addict, Tarn clearly liked his candy.

If not for what he knew was coming, the scene might have been charming. Two old friends, listening to music and drinking together, completely at ease.

When Megatron noticed him, he beckoned, and Ratchet went to him. What else was there to do?

As he crossed the room, he started a lubrication cycle, though he could still feel the pooling remnants of the one he had triggered in the medbay. Ratchet didn't worry about it, something told him he was going to need anything he could get. The night was going to be painful and humiliating no matter how it played out.

Megatron took him by the hips and eased him down into his lap, turning him so that he was facing Tarn, his back pressed into the Warlord's chest. Ratchet evened his ventliations. This was nothing he hadn't done before, even if Megatron was yet to share him with anyone. He told himself that Tarn was just another Decepticon, no different than the ones who had captured him in the first place.

...but of course that wasn't true.

"What do you think of my prize?" Megatron's hands stroked over his frame, claws sliding between armor to the senstivie wiring beneath, warm palms caressing transformation seams. Ratchet gritted his dental chips as he felt a trickle of of lubricants that had nothing to do with the automatic cycle. Slag Megatron.

"Handsome." Tarn's mask tilted, just barely. He was impossible to read. He had blunt fingers, Ratchet noticed them for the first time, just like an Autobot. That was a curious cosmetic choice. "A good frame for large litters. I saw him earlier, he said you don't like to share."

Megatron's engines rumbled in amusement, and Ratchet felt the vibration in his chest. "I suppose that's true. At least, not with just anyone."

"I'm honored, Lord Megatron." Tarn set his drink down, and Ratchet felt the weight of his gaze. They weren't done talking about him like he was a buymech on display, he supposed. "He's not a war-frame, he might give you litters who are... unsuitable."

"I will find some use for any who can't fight. Prizes for favored lieutenants, perhaps." He grinned at Tarn and palmed Ratchet's panel. "Unless I see fit to claim them, they're just Autobot detritus."

They were trying to get a rise out of him, and Ratchet refused to take the bait. He slid his valve panel open and felt Megatron purring against his audial as he was lifted a bit further into the Decepticon's lap, his aft bumping against Megatron's still-shuttered array. Lubricant leaked from him, dripping down over Megatron's hips. 

Megatron gripped his thighs, pulling them a bit further apart. If he hadn't been on display for Tarn before, he certainly was now. "Anything to add, dear Ratchet?"

"Only that Tarn shouldn't be drinking engex." With great effort, Ratchet kept his tone professional. "He just got out of surgery."

They both laughed, and Tarn's rich voice made him shudder and press back against Megatron, whose hands tightened around Ratchet's hips. "Since you're so eager," Megatron said, "I can hardly deny you."

He heard the click of Megatron's spike panel, and realized with dismay that he found the sound frmailiar by this point. The head of the spike was hot as it slid between the folds of his valve, and Megatron's hips circled slowly. Ratchet shuttered his optics and leaned back, resting his hands on Megatron's thick, powerful arms. Bitterly, he hoped Tarn was getting a good show. He felt the pressure, the shift of Megatron's hips, and the sharp pierce of the thrust that filled him. He cried out, dug his fingers into Megatron's arm, heard Tarn vocalize a noise of approval.

Leaning back into his chair, Megatron rolled his hips slowly, grinding into Ratchet's ceiling node. A little more than a week without enduring a night in his berth had given Ratchet time to heal, and this time, there were no cuts or abused dermal mesh to distract him from the sensations. He almost wished there was, he didn't want Megatron to push him into an overload for the amusement of his favorite butcher. 

...and something told him Megatron was only being this gentle (if it could really be called 'gentle') because he didn't want Ratchet damaged or unconscious when Tarn got his turn. He tried to put his mind elsewhere, moving with Megatron and rolling his hips into the thrusts with the fragile hope of getting him off quicker. The click of Tarn's spike panel got his attention, and he opened his optics a fraction, just to see what was waiting for him.

Honestly, he had expected worse.

Barbs, maybe. Hooks, certainly possible. A second spike wouldn't have been out of the question. He'd seen them all before - during autopsies, or when he'd given medical attention to captured Decepticons, but Tarn had nothing of the sort. There was no denying the DJD leader was big, Megatron's size, or perhaps only a faction smaller - the same assessment Ratchet had given him earlier in the medbay. His spike was thick, heavy, and dark shades, all blacks and purples. The underside had the same grooved pattern as his treads, and recessed deeply in the grooves were neat rows of of magenta biolights, pulsing idly. They reflected off a set of silver ladder piercings, and Ratchet wondered if Knock Out had done them. They seemed oddly obscene, out of place with Tarn's airs of sophistication and grace. On Cybertron, only buymechs had piercings. 

It had caused some confusion when they had first encountered humans.

Tarn was stroking himself as he watched Megatron, a silvery drop of transfluid beading out from his channel and dripping down into the treads. Ratchet couldn't bring himself to make optical contact, so he watched Tarn's hand instead. The other Decepticon was putting on a show too, touching himself idly instead of trying to work his spike into overload. It was then that Ratchet saw the lines of an outward curve at the base of Tarn's spike, barely noticeable in the dim light.

Primus, he had a fragging knot. 

Ratchet's valve clenched down in protest at the thought of it and he tried to pull his legs together. He didn't accomplish anything, Megatron was still deep inside him and the struggle only made the Warlord shift his grip on Ratchet's legs and tug them open again. Megatron's engines revved and Ratchet heard himself venting desperately.

"Do you like that?" Megatron kissed his audial, and Ratchet heard the Ode's second movement end and the third begin without any pause in the music. "I hope you do, because it's going inside you."

"No! I don't!" Ratchet clutched at Megatron's arms, feeling the eager plunge of the spike that was already inside him and shaking. Megatron was venting heavily, he was close, Ratchet's protests and fear apparently doing more for him than when he had been trying to ride him. "Primus! Megatron! He's going to kill me with that thing."

The way they both laughed told him it was something that had happened before. 

"Only if you fight," said Tarn, and Ratchet realized he should have known it would have been something more subtle than hooks or barbs. He tried not to think of some poor mech trapped on Tarn's spike while the rest of his team had their way with him, knowing their latest victim couldn't even move without ripping himself open. His whimper of protest was probably what sent Megatron into overload, and Ratchet felt the hot, thick pulses of transfluid filling his valve, dripping out around the rim, though Megaton's spike kept most of it inside.

Tarn was watching, his gaze appreciative. "May I?" he asked, as Megatron came to a stop, stroking Ratchet's hips with his thumbs.

There was no elaboration, and Megatron seemed to be considering whatever Tarn's request was. One of his powerful, clawed hands slid up and rubbed Ratchet's midsection, making him shudder. "Ratchet," he said at last. "You're a medic. Offline your optics."

"I..." Ratchet tried to turn to face him. "What?!"

"Offline your optics." Megatron's voice was more forceful this time, his tone dangerous. "Tarn wants to put his mouth on you, and I'm feeling indulgent tonight. It's been a long trip for him."

It was Ratchet's turn to consider, and he made his choice quickly, dimming his optics down to one percent power instead of using a medical protocol to offline them entirely. Neither of them were medics, he doubted they'd notice. It effectively blinded him anyways. Blue optics were for mechs who lived at the top of the world, in towers pointed towards Cybertron's sun. In the dim light of Megatron's apartments, he couldn't see a thing. 

He heard the familiar hum of partial transformation - the mask wasn't just magnetized on, it was part of him, like an Autobot's battlemask. The rattle of the cube, the creak as Tarn rose from his chair. The sound of his footfalls. As they approached, Megatron lifted Ratchet off his spike with a grunt and stood him up. He hated how much he had to rely on the Warlord for support, to say nothing of the way Megatron's still-pressurized spike was pressing into his back. He hated the how he could feel the lingering heat of Megatron's filth mixing with his own lubricants and dripping down his thighs.

Without warning, Tarn's lips closed over his and Ratchet felt the Decepticon's spike pressing into his midsection, pre-fluid trickling down over him. Megatron pressed into his back, crushing him between them. The size difference between Ratchet and Megatron was bad enough, but with Tarn here, all he could feel was their frames and all he could sense was their energy fields. The air he was cycling was their ex-vents. The rest of the world seemed absent.

Ratchet gasped against the sensation and something sweet flowed into his mouth from Tarn's. The candied engex, he realized. Tarn much have been holding what was left on the cube in his mouth. It was delicious, warmed by the heat of Tarn's frame and absurdly pure. He hadn't had engex in millions and millions of stellar cycles, and he hadn't had _good_ engex since Iacon had fallen. If he spit it back in Tarn's face, surely there would be consequences he didn't like, so instead he drank it in, feeling Tarn's tongue sweep though his mouth.

Tarn's mouth moved down, to his throat cabling, his shoulder seams. His hands caressed Ratchet's transformation seams and made him squirm. They felt like an Autobot's hands, and somehow that was worse than being scratched. Finally, he was on his knees in front of Ratchet, and he kissed and nuzzled at his midsection, over the gestational tank.

It make Ratchet think of Optimus, and that made him feel filthy.

...but then again, those blunt hands, the unexpectedly gentle touch, Tarn's soft 'may I's', even the hum of the battlemask when it retracted and the lips on his shoulder seams, who else was he supposed to think of?

And then it struck him. [You're sick,] Ratchet snapped off, over the comm. He thought of the piercings on Tarn's spike. [Megatron, you're sick. This is sick.]

Megatron's hands settled on his hips. [I can teach my followers to interface in whatever way pleases me, and I've spent a great deal of time teaching Tarn.]

[You should tell him you're thinking of Optimus when he's got your spike in his mouth.] Ratchet struggled, and Tarn's hands gripped his thighs, smearing through the mess on them, holding him still.

[Why don't I tell him that Knock Out tried to kill me, and we can watch what happens together?] The threat hung in the air, and having no answer to it, Ratchet leaned back against Megatron, whose engines answered with a pleased rumble.

Ratchet's hips jerked as Tarn's thumb rubbed over his anterior node, and his engines whined softly. Ratchet shifted his legs, trying to balance.

"You should pierce this, Lord Megatron. To remind the Autobot of his place."

"I thought of it," Megatron said casually, "but I didn't want to wait to take him."

"It would make it easier to reward him with overloads, when you see fit to." Tarn's thumbs stroked along the swollen lips of his valve and his touch made Ratchet squirm. While they were talking, Ratchet dialed up his optics, just slightly, and waited to get used to dim light. It gave him shapes and not much more.

"Speaking of that," Megatron purred. "Since I'm letting you have this, I want you to make him overload."

There was no answer. Instead Ratchet felt Tarn's mouth on his valve, lapping up the transfluid and lubricants that were still dripping from him, suckling and licking hungrily. Ratchet's hips jerked, and he flailed with one hand, trying to find somewhere to rest it. He touched something on Tarn that cut him, punching right through the side of his hand right to the struts inside. The side of the mask, Ratchet realized. It was so sharp he hadn't felt the initial cut. Apparently he wasn't the first mech to try and grab it. If Tarn noticed the dripping energon, he didn't indicate, or maybe he just didn't care.

Ratchet balled his hand into a fist, shunted aside the damage report, and dialed his optics up to twenty percent - the highest he dared.

It was impossible to ignore Tarn's mouth though. Once he had finished licking clean the last traces of Megatron's overload, he had started rubbing his lips over Ratchet's folds, flicking his tongue over them and sliding it inside, igniting the first rings of sensors. Ratchet's feet scraped across the floor, and he tried not to rock his hips into the Decepticon's mouth. When Tarn starting sucking on his node though, he couldn't help it, and all he could justify it to himself was that the sooner it happened, the sooner it would end. He realized that Megatron must have taught Tarn to do this to, and he was disgusted with himself.

When Tarn's fingers slid into him, Ratchet's engines whined and his hips ground down against them. Tarn's engines were purring, and Ratchet felt like the vibrations were carrying though his node and into his entire frame. Overload washed over him, and he shook so badly that Megatron had to hold him up. More lubricant trickled out of him, and his valve clenched down around the fingers in his valve, but without Megatron's transfluid mixed with it, Tarn paid it no mind.

There was a hum as his mask snapped shut, but not before Ratchet saw the outline of his face, the cast of handsome features, the mark of discolored protoflesh on Tarn's forehead, indicating where he had once been attached to a gestational tank.

...and even in the dark, Ratchet recognized the progeny of Zeta Prime's breeding line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I'd add this now that I'm home, I have a minute, and it's not likely to come up with the the context of the story, but Tarn's callsign is @facethemusic and Kaon's is @thechairman.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starscream is actually going to be in this at some point, I swear.

While developing, a sparkling would attach to the side of the gestational tank. The layers of soft cabling on the tank walls served a purpose similar to a human umbilical cord - or so Ratchet understood it. He hadn't had spent much time studying human biology, but he had grasped the basics.

The sparkling would absorb nutrients from the carrier, and the sire - if the carrier had access to their transfluid, through the point of attachment. It was best to have the sire on hand, since a litter (especially a large one) could otherwise tax a carrier to the point of shutdown or offlining. Though in situations where the sire was unavailable, any transfluid would do.

Attachment points were similar to the scars that humans called navels. A discolored patch of plating or protoflesh that was wholly benign, save that in Cybertonians, they could occur anywhere on the body. Pharma's had been on his back, centered between his wings (an auspicious birth, in Vosian culture). Magnus' on the bottom of his left heel. Mirage's wrapped in thin bands around his right arm. Logic told him that Starscream, who was also Vosian nobility, must have one too, though Ratchet had never seen it, even during the brief medical assistance he had given the Seeker. They were usually dyed or painted over, though there was no stigma against a visible mark. Some mechs even considered them attractive.

A sparkling that didn't attach wasn't viable, and it would eventually dissolve and be absorbed back into the tank.

 _How?_ Ratchet's mind raced, but that was the most burning question.

He'd known Zeta had several breeding lines, and that the elder Prime had carried litters of his own. Despite that, Ratchet immediately dismissed Tarn as Zeta's offspring though carriage - he had personally delivered all of Zeta's litters, and they were all accounted for. Tarn was the product of the concubinage, that much was certain. Descent from a Primal line _would_ be one explanation for his strange powers.

Did Tarn know he was an Autobot, or at least, descended from one? Would he care if he did?

Where had Megatron found him? Had he stolen him? Had the Decepticons taken one of Zeta's concubines captive during the fall of Iacon?

Had they been carrying already, or had Megatron--

[You're a monster, Megatron. Unicron spawned you in darkness.]

[I told you to keep your optics offline,] Megatron returned, smugly. [I don't give you orders for my own good. You could have spared yourself knowing what your Primes were really like.]

[Did you rape Zeta's concubines yourself, or did you have one of your followers do it?]

[No need to be crude, medic. He's not my sparkling.] Megatron leaned down, kissing and nipping at his neck cabling. [Tarn's progenitor was already carrying when his owner sold him.]

Relief and horror came so closely together that Ratchet had trouble sorting them out. Relief that at least Tarn wasn't Megatron's offspring, and perhaps there were depths to which the Warlord wouldn't sink. He let go of Megatron's arm to clutch at his midsection. Horror, that a mech had been sold while carrying, to-- to what? To be a berth slave for the gladiators in Kaon? Was that where Megatron had gotten Tarn?

Tarn was still kneeling, resting his aft on his heelstruts, gazing up at Megatron, his spike still fully pressurized. At ease and passive, yet still threatening. Full of barely restrained violence and depravity. Waiting for a command to rise, Ratchet guessed. Something else Megatron had taught him, and Ratchet felt his tanks churn. He realized something abruptly.

[You're lying. It was illegal to sell a carrying mech.] It was one of few, transparent, protections a Primal concubine had.

Megatron chuckled against his audial. [Not if you're the Prime,] and after a second, he added, [or the Emperor.]

Ratchet heard someone vocalize a soft whine of fear and realized it was him. He saw Tarn's hips twitch in response, the glint of transfluid in the grooves of his spike, and he drew his legs together involuntarily. 

"The floor?" Tarn asked.

"The berth," Megatron answered, gesturing to Tarn with one hand. "He's carrying, and Knock Out was in here the other night, complaining that he needs to be more comfortable during recharge."

 _Well,_ , Ratchet thought, _he's right_. Stress could be extremely bad for carriage, and in addition to the sire's transfluid, a sparkling benefited immensely from exposure to friendly energy fields. In his professional opinion, he was getting far to much of the former and none of the latter. Not that he dared bring it up, since he suspected it was the reason that Knock Out had come back to the medbay torn.

Megatron mechhandled Ratchet into the adjoining room and shoved him onto the berth. He cried out, and tried to rise, but as he got to his knees, Megatron's hand came down on his back. "Good enough," the Warlord said, his fields full of triumphant glee.

Of course that was what he wanted.

He felt the shift of the berth as Tarn climbed onto it behind him, and heard the light creak as Megatron settled in front of him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to look back and see what Tarn was doing, or look forward at Megatron's spike, still glistening with Ratchet's lubricants and his own transfluid. Megatron made the decision for him, gripping Ratchet's head in one hand and guiding him down until his lips were rubbing against the sensitive crown of the Decepticon leader's spike.

Of all the ways Megatron used his frame, Ratchet was fairly sure that being forced to suck his spike was the worst. At least when Megatron was rutting between his legs, there was precious little involvement required on his part. Behind him, Tarn traced a finger down the folds of his bared valve, and the touch made him jump and cry out. Megatron's hand tightened on his head, guiding him back down. Reluctantly, Ratchet opened his mouth and ran his tongue over the ridges of Megatron's jutting spike. He tasted the mix of their transfluid and lubricants, and it made him want to gag. He tried to remember if he had once enjoyed it, with Optimus perhaps, and found he couldn't.

"Shhh... Autobot. Shhhh." Tarn whispered, the words felt like a caress, and his tone was soothing. Ratchet felt Tarn's fingers trace around his valve again, and one of them slid inside, stroking and curling. His hips jerked. "You're going to need to hold much more still than that once I'm inside."

A second finger joined the first and Ratchet tried to tell himself to be grateful for the preparation. He braced his knees, but he was shaking to much, already knowing that he would never be able to hold still enough to please Tarn, and that that was part of what they were doing to him. He slid his mouth over the first third of Megatron's spike, as much as he could take without real discomfort, and tried to focus on it. Distracting himself from Tarn was the only thing that was going to help, and like it or not, this was his only available distraction.

If it had been Optimus, Ratchet would have coaxed his valve panel open, to finger him and tease as his node while his mouth worked. He had even tried it once with Megatron, not out of any real desire to please him, but just to try and get him off more quickly. The Warlord had growled so dangerously and dragged Ratchet's hand away with a grip that had left his wrist stinging for days. He hadn't tried again.

"You're all but indulging him back there," Megatron said with a chuckle, and Ratchet's hips ground back involuntarily as Tarn's blunt fingers circled his node. 

"He's carrying your sparkling," Tarn said. Ratchet felt the press of a third finger, sliding in and out, spreading him wide. "And perhaps one day he'll carry mine. I don't want to damage him _to_ badly. There'll be no more litters if I rip out his entire array."

Fear shuddered through Ratchet's fields, and above him, Megatron's hand stroked his head, as though he were a pet. Something told him that Tarn had done just that before. He tried to close his legs, and found Tarn's knee was between them, holding them open. Of course it was. 

"I require one more," Megatron said, thoughtfully. His hips were making little circles as he slid his spike further into Ratchet's mouth, pressing into the soft mesh around his intake. "A _proper_ litter of a dozen or more. Once he gives me that, the next will be yours."

Ratchet made a noise of protest around Megatron's spike, and Tarn laughed. "He doesn't like that."

"It doesn't matter what he likes."

"I suppose it doesn't," Tarn said. The fingers inside him slid free and Ratchet felt Tarn's spike sliding back and forth over the folds of his valve, the swell of the knot. It wasn't even engaged, and it already felt to big for him. "Do you want me to make him to overload, _Master_?"

The admiration swirling though that last word made Ratchet want to purge.

It was Megatron's turn to laugh, and Ratchet tasted a trickle of pre-fluid. "He doesn't like that."

"As you said, Lord Megatron," Tarn was purring now, and he brought the head of his spike to the rim of Ratchet's valve. He was close to Megatron's size, though the head of his spike was more tapered, to ease its passage. Ratchet balled his hands into fists as he felt the pressure of penetration. "It doesn't matter what he likes."

Tarn filled him slowly, and oddly painlessly. Ratchet had the eariler preparation to thank for that, he guessed. Megatron's hips stopped working his spike into his Ratchet's mouth as he sat up a little, to watch. He refused to feel any relief. Peircings raked over internal sensors and delicate valve mesh, and Ratchet moved his hips into the thrust until he felt the bulb of the knot. Tarn pressed against him, threatening him with it, then pulled back, until he was almost out. Ratchet's engines whined.

They took him in earnest then, and Ratchet was helpless between them, impaled at both ends. Tarn held him, forcing Ratchet to move with him, making sure the rhythm of his thrusts was never so violent that it halted the building pressure of an overload. At the apex of each thrust, Ratchet felt the terrible pressure of the knot, and it wasn't long before Tarn was pushing the top half inside each time plunged into his valve. Even without it, he could have easily reached Ratchet's ceiling node - and he did. Their hands were on him everywhere, gripping his aft, his shoulders, his hips - there was no escaping them.

Megatron thrust carelessly into his mouth, holding the back of his head and pumping into him roughly. The thick, blunt head of spike was pushing into Ratchet's intake, making him gag. He gripped desperately at Megatron's thighs, trying to keep balanced, anything not to slip or change positions and tear free from Tarn. The knot was thickening with arousal, and while it wasn't large enough to tie Tarn to him, he didn't want to be pulled free from it either.

He wished he could focus on one or the other, but it was impossible. Megatron overloaded first, and his hand gripped Ratchet by the chevron, a triumphant cry rising out of his vocalizer. His earlier overload had seemingly no effect on how much transfluid was spurting into Ratchet's mouth, and Megatron held him in place, forcing him to swallow. It was hot, and it made him gag and choke, the silvery fluid dripping down his chin. It felt like minutes before Megatron finally pulled free from his mouth, and Tarn's thrusts became more eager, as though he could sense the building pressure and shameful effect his spike was having on Ratchet.

When Megatron reclined against the top of the berth, Ratchet felt Tarn grip his hips, and the deep grind of the thrust that finally slid the knot fully inside. He wanted to sob, and he felt heat burn behind his optics, but he muted his vocalizer rather than release the cry. As for Tarn, there was no cry or shout of triumph when he overloaded, and Ratchet couldn't help but to wonder if that was because an outburst might damage either him or Megatron. The knot had been bearable before, but now it stretched him impossibly wide, the pressure in his valve unbearably intense. When he felt the heat of Tarn's transfluid pulsing into his ceiling node, it sent him into a thrashing overload. 

Tarn held him down, making sure he didn't try to get away, and Ratchet felt his valve clenching down around Tarn's length, trying to pull him in deeper, desperately milking him for transfluid. It was hard to say who produced more. Megatron rarely finished fully inside him, but with Tarn there was nowhere for the transfluid to go. The pressure in his valve had been released by the overload, but Ratchet felt stuffed full. He was worried to look down at his abdominal plating, for fear of seeing a bulge.

"Good," Tarn purred. "Very good, Autobot."

*** *** ***

Ratchet tried to get comfortable, but it was a lost cause. He was laying on his side with Tarn still hilted inside him, the head of the Decepticon's spike putting constant pressure on his ceiling node, the piercings nudging internal sensors back into ignition as the tank vented slowly behind him. There's no escaping the black power in Tarn's energy fields either, he was sated and pleased with himself and Ratchet was wholly enveloped.

His intake felt raw from Megatron's transfluid, and it was all he could taste. Primus, he swore he could still feel it on his tongue, slithering down his intake, and he could definitely feel the heat of it in his fuel tanks. He had swallowed enough of it to raise his energy levels a handful of percent.

To make things worse, Megatron moved to lay next to him, close enough that Ratchet was all but pressed to his chest.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

 _Frag you_ , Ratchet thought, not daring to shoot the words at Megatron either verbally or over the comm. With that monster of a spike in him, and caught in the grip of their threatening fields, there was no way he would recharge. It had been bad enough simply to lay in a berth next to Megatron, this was a thousand times worse.

As if to hammer the point home, he felt a hot spurt of transfluid deep inside him. How long Tarn could keep that up, he didn't know. The pressure was agonizing and he wanted to squirm, but he didn't dare.

He had to do something. If he had to endure much more of this, it was going to kill him, make him lose the litter, or both.

[Megatron.] Ratchet reached up and laid his hands on the Decepticon's chest, one of either side of his brand. The first time he'd ever touched the Warlord willingly, if it could truly be counted as that.

It got Megatron's attention, and his engines purred appreciatively. Ratchet felt the vibration all the way up into his shoulders. [Yes?]

Taking one of Megatron's hands, he guided it down his frame to his midsection, letting it rest over where the tank was located. Before the war, Megatron had been a performer, a warrior, a politician, but Ratchet wondered if he could perhaps outmaneuver him. Perhaps not, but he had to try.

[This is yours,] he said. [A life _you_ created. _Our_ sparkling. The first one since the Well shut down.]

Scything claws caressed his plating. Megatron could kill him with a simple swipe of his arm, it made Ratchet tremble, and Tarn's hand tightened on his hip in response. [What's your point?]

[They need their sire.] Ratchet paused, taking a moment to form the words. [... _I_ need their sire. I'm only going to become more fragile as the carriage goes on. In the last stages I won't even be able to transform.]

[So you say, but how is that my concern?]

[Because,] Ratchet said, [you _are_ their sire. The first new life since the Exodus, since the death of our planet. You said you would restore Cybertron, and you have. You said you would bring us home, and you have. And Primus has seen fit to reward you with a line of your own, Megatron. Your own progeny.]

Megatron's engines grumbled, but his fields seemed to brighten with interest. [There is no Primus.]

[I'll admit I've questioned Him too, especially recently, but call it what you want.]

[...and what is it that _you_ want, medic?] Megatron watched him, curiously. [Surely this conversation has a purpose.]

Ratchet pulled in a deep vent, the air was hot from Megatron's frame, from Tarn's. The spike inside him shifted slightly, and he pressed his hips down against it, whimpering. It was going to be hard to continue, but he had to.

_He has a fragile ego. You hurt him._

Ratchet hoped Knock Out was right.

[I want you to claim your sparkling, I want you to claim _me_.] He looked up at Megatron, meeting his optics. [How much more of this do you think I'll survive? I can't go on being passed around to your favorites and begging for my life every night. Primus, Megatron, he's _hurting_ me.]

Megatron raised an eyeridge. [Am I supposed to believe this is something more than an Autobot trick? You only want to be publicly acknowledged because you hope to be rescued.]

[If you're secure in your victory, and you _are_ , then why does it matter what's public and what isn't?] Ratchet searched Megatron's expression and went on. [Even if my friends stormed your citadel tomorrow, I couldn't go with them. Carriage is complicated and dangerous, and I accept that the Decepticons control Cybertron now. I won't pretend I like it, but you're the only one who has the resources I need. It's not romantic, but it's the truth.]

Megatron watched him, but said nothing. Ratchet decided to interpret it as a good sign, he put his hand over Megatron's badge and suppressed a shudder.

[Megatron, if you really believe this life isn't yours, if your sparkling is really just Autobot detritus...] Ratchet steeled himself, and internally asked for forgiveness. [...then just execute us. Please. You're doing it slowly already. Let me rest, let me be with Orion in the Afterspark, let _him_ care for us.]

A low, dangerous growl rumbled through Megatron's frame and Ratchet felt Tarn respond to it immediately. His fields had been growing lax, but they instantly snapped to attention, and his spike twitched inside Ratchet, who winced but kept his optics on Megatron. Tarn didn't control his fate at the moment.

"Lord Megatron?" he asked.

There was a long, terrifying silence. Ratchet didn't even dare to ventilate.

"Disengage," Megatron said, at last. "Leave us."

*** *** ***

On the three day drive back towards Team Prime's most recent hiding place, and Arcee wondered if Magnus was very upset.

By all accounts, it looked like he had taken it very well, if he had done very little to conceal his disappointment. The Matrix couldn't be taken, after all. It had to be given, and any attempt to force or coerce Smokescreen's cooperation might have made Magnus spiritually unsuitable. Instead he had simply said that he hoped Smokescreen might change his mind if they came to know each other better, and if not, there were many more Autobots with the Fleet. Perhaps one of them would prove worthy.

[He's fraggin' pissed,] Jazz explained to her, over the comm. [Goddamn incandescent with rage.]

Arcee sighed. [Wonderful.]

Magnus and Smokescreen had remained with the shuttle while she went with Jazz to retrieve Bumblebee. Arcee would have preferred not to be on the road, but Magnus had explained that there was a good chance that Starscream might detect the shuttle when it took off. If he did, they would have to call for a spacebridge to the Fleet, and more than likely, they would not be able to return. Stealth was the only option.

[Bee couldn't come with ya?] Jazz asked.

[Bee stopped eating a while ago,] Arcee said, grimly. She didn't know if she blamed him. It wasn't as if Optimus had been Bumblebee's sire, but still, there was no denying how close they had been. And he hadn't just lost Raf, but Cody and the rest of the Burns family. [He doesn't get off his berth most days. Once we got your message, I had to make a call. I didn't think we could afford to wait. I had to get the Matrix to safety.]

Jazz's fields swirled, but settled in a mix worry and approval. [He won't drive, we ain't gonna be able to carry him.]

[I know,] she said. At least _this_ time, she was making the drive heavily armed and with full tanks. [Pull off here, it's under the overpass. I'll think of something.]

Under a crumbling bridge was the dark mouth of a tunnel that led down under the ruins of the city. Arcee suspected it had once been used by human criminals to move stolen goods, though the original inhabitants were long gone. The entrance wasn't invisible, but the layout of the concrete pillars meant it was difficult to spot unless you were right on top of it. They'd been hiding there for weeks and they were yet to see a Decepticon patrol come through. 

As soon as she pulled up, she knew something was wrong. Jazz sensed it too.

There were tire marks around the entrance, not Vehicon patterns, ones she didn't recognize. Thick bands carved into the dirt, the weave from a vehicle with treads. Three sets, maybe four. She couldn't tell for sure, it was a mess.

[Scrap!] She transformed and sprinted.

['Cee, wait!] She heard Jazz's t-cog engage as he flipped up into robot-mode and followed.

She didn't, and it changed nothing. She wasn't sure what to focus on. The empty, makeshift berth where they had left Bumblebee. The tiny crescent of energon on the ground, barely a smear. The broken fragment of windshield glass. The discoloring of the concrete wall, where a space bridge had opened.

They were too late.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's not exactly hardcore gore in this chapter, but Megatron and Ratchet talk a bit about Cybertronian miscarriage/death during birth and do go into some detail.

They settled into an uneasy holding pattern.

Ratchet still spent virtually every night in Megatron's berth, though the Warlord didn't share him again and no assault was severe enough to send him to the medbay unconscious.

For Ratchet's part, he did his best to go to Megatron willing and obedient. It wasn't always possible, Ratchet didn't loathe Megatron any less, but he did everything in his power to tolerate the Decepticon's attentions. 

The carriage progressed into the second-fifth, and it was in that week that Ratchet finally managed to recharge at Megatron's side. Either he had grown used to his energy fields or it was the carriage trying to keep him close to the sire. Waking up curled into the warmth of his frame was as shameful as anything else he had experienced. He tried, in vain, to remember awakening enveloped in Optimus' arms and fields and found he couldn't.

Knock Out passed his exams in the ninety-eigth percentile, and despite everything, Ratchet couldn't help but feel some small measure of pride - even as he worried that the Decepticon might be last student he ever trained.

"You can officially start calling yourself 'Doctor Knock Out'," he said.

Knock Out flashed him a grin, like he was posing for a camera. "I always called myself that, but now I can do it without lying."

"I have something for you," Ratchet said, plucking the repaired chevron form his subspace. He'd had time to polish and engrave it and now he offered it to Knock Out, palm out. "A graduation present."

"I'm not actually going to _wear_ it," Knock Out said, even as he took it and held it like it was something precious. "It doesn't match, and I'd have to re-model my whole look."

"I know, Knock Out," Ratchet said a bit fondly, but later he caught the racer examining himself in a mirror and looking curious. He didn't think much of it, Knock Out spent a great deal of time examining himself in mirrors.

That afternoon, they did another barrage of full frame scans, and Ratchet submitted to another probe. 

"Do you want to see the picts?" Knock Out asked, tapping at the datapad with his claws.

"I..." Ratchet realized that he did. "Yes."

Knock Out handed it over and Ratchet plugged into it this time, downloading the picts. The sight of the sparkling almost him made wish they had been doing the scans on a more consistent timeline, but as gentle as Knock Out tried to be, Ratchet still didn't like the feeling of a Decepticon between his legs.

"It has external wings," Knock Out said, curious. "You and Megatron don't have those, though his frame is a flight-capable one."

"Mmmmm..." Ratchet nodded, smiling a little at the sight of tiny arms and legs, visible but not entirely formed. It was a little early to make a call, but the point of attachment appeared to be the right palm. It was hard to remember, but in Pharma's silly Vosian horoscopes, Ratchet thought it meant wisdom. He supposed he could ask Starscream, something told him the former Prince still knew all the old signs. The Vosians had always been strange and fiddly and superstitious.

More than anything, Ratchet felt relief. To the Decepticons, a flight-capable frame was a war-frame. A weapons loadout could always be added later, it wasn't even a particularly complicated or difficult to install mod. He would never have wanted a sparkling he carried to be a warrior, Cybertron had enough of those already - far to many, but this development would keep them both safe. Megatron wasn't likely to order a termination so he could try again with a new litter.

"Is that... normal?" Knock Out asked.

"For Primus' sake," Ratchet barked, "you're a doctor now! You tell me!"

"I've only dealt with carriage in theroy! It's not like there have been any young Cybertronians for a very long time."

Ratchet sighed. "Yes, Knock Out. It's perfectly normal. A Cybertronian's shape is extremely mutable before the first transformation, even if they've scanned a vehicle mode. Megatron has wings, they're just internal, and they're probably shaped just like these ones."

*** *** ***

"I have something to show you," Ratchet said as he stepped into Megatron's apartments. 

"Do you now?" The Warlord was sitting on a couch in front of a holoscreen, watching a playback, and as usual, he beckoned with one hand. It wasn't a newsreel that Ratchet recognized, some of the Neutrals still did their own broadcasts, but he guessed this was an information packet that Soundwave had put together specifically for Megatron. Ratchet doubted that the Decepticon leader actually watched holovids, he probably thought it was a sign of weakness.

Ratchet suppressed a sigh and crossed the room to him, sitting down at his side, instead of in his lap.

"Knock Out took some picts today." Ratchet didn't flinch as Megatron's arm settled around him. "Do you want to see them?"

"You wouldn't dare ask if you didn't already know the news was good," Megatron said, still watching the screen. "So, yes. Show me my sparkling."

Ratchet sighed and retrieved the datapad from his subspace, offering it to Megatron. The Warlord took it, turning his attention away from the holoscreen so he could tap through it. Against all odds, he smiled. The expression didn't make Ratchet feel any safer.

Megatron set the datapad aside. "A shame there's just one."

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Ratchet said. Though he really meant 'dreading'. Having to give the Emperor a lesson in sex-ed would have been awkward no matter what Ratchet's position was. "How many sparklings do you think come in a litter?"

"I only ever saw the one," Megatron said, "and there was to much a mess to count all the pods, but twenty? And there were still more inside of him, he died trying to push them all out. Trying to give birth to the dead. There were no doctors in the Pits, but I know what it looks like when a mech bleeds out."

Ratchet felt his tanks churn. "You mean Tarn's carrier?"

"Yes. And he was smaller than you are."

"Tarn was the only one who survived?"

"I saw him moving, and I had to cut his pod free from the frame, but yes."

"That's why he died, the size of the litter. A large enough litter will starve the carrier to death inside their own frame. It's impossible to support. The leech of metal and energon will eventually start a cascade that's impossible to reverse." If Zeta were still alive, Ratchet wouldn't have intervened if Megatron wanted to kill him again. He wondered what the poor, nameless mech had done to displease the Lord Prime enough to discard him like that.

"...and how large is to large?" Megatron's hands wandered over his frame, resting on his midsection, stroking idly.

"It depends on the frame type," Ratchet explained, going ahead and triggering a lubrication cycle, "but the medical community agrees that for smaller mechs, or Seekers, one to three is ideal. For larger mechs, three to five. Never more than seven, regardless of size."

"I see." Megatron raised an eyeridge. "And if there are more?"

"Selective termination, performed by a doctor, and based on which sparklings are determined to be the most viable."

"So then," Megatron said, thoughtfully, "Zeta knew exactly what would happened to the mechs he discarded."

"You said it was just the one."

Megatron made a noise of disgust. "I don't believe for a moment it was just the one."

"Since you want to be better than the Primes," Ratchet said, even as he privately hoped there would not another, "you should let me manage these litters you're going to be giving me. If you don't trust me, then Knock Out can do it."

"Next," said Megatron with a derisive snort, "you're going to want me to attend the birth."

Ratchet laughed, and once he started, found he couldn't stop. It went on until he was bordering on hysterical, clinging to Megatron for support, hands scraping over the bigger mech's plating. His frame shaking in a way that had nothing to do with fear. "Attend the birth?" Ratchet asked between ventilations. "Primus, _no_. _You_? Why would I want that?"

Megatron frowned. Ratchet couldn't tell if he was offended or not. It clearly wasn't the reaction he had hoped for.

"I _want_ to be rescued, and I want to give birth on the Fleet, with my friends there." Ratchet tilted his head up and locked optics with Megatron. This was surely going to break the holding pattern and result in a beating or a particularly violent night in the berth, but it was to late now. "I want to tell this sparkling that my cojunx was their sire. I don't even want them know your _name_. But since I'm not likely to get that, yes, Megatron, I want you to attend the birth. I want you to be the first one to hold the pod. Primus, if this is where I'm going to spend the rest of my life, I want you to care for your sparkling, to love them. Assuming you're even capable of that."

"You're asking to much, medic."

"Yes," Ratchet snapped, "I suppose I should have known that basic decency was beyond you."

Megatron gripped him by the wrist, his engines revving. "I'm tiring of your banter, Autobot. Go and get on the berth."

*** *** ***

A few days later, on his drive to the medbay from Megatron's apartments, he came upon Soundwave.

Ratchet doubted it was a chance encounter, the spy was always watching, and he probably knew where he was at all times. He tried to recall the last time he had seen Soundwave, and realized it must have been in footage of the battle over the Omega Lock - almost a whole stellar cycle had passed since then. Most likely, he had come because Megatron had assumed claim over the sparkling in some small way. Not publicly (that Ratchet knew of), but he had surely shared the news of his good fortune with Soundwave, maybe as recently as moments ago. Which was why the spymaster was here now. Yesterday, Ratchet had been meaningless to him, just another Autobot slave. Now he was carrying the Emperor's sparkling, and that had captured Soundwave's attention.

When he saw Ratchet, he approached, and Ratchet stopped, transforming back to robot mode. The spy drew closer and pointed at Ratchet's midsection, then waited.

Ratchet gave a gesture of acquiescence. "You're going to anyways," he muttered, under a soft ex-vent.

To his complete surprise, Soundwave withdrew his hand and stepped back to a more respectful distance. His visor glinted as his head inclined, just slightly.

"No, Soundwave, it's fine. It really is." Ratchet nodded to him. "You can if you like. Megatron's sparkling is just fine. Very healthy."

Something flashed across Soundwave's visor, to quick for him to catch, and the spy splayed his spindly fingers over Ratchet's midsection, stroking gently. Ratchet had always thought of Soundwave as eerie and silent, but now he pinged him with a barrage of data with a signal-to-noise ratio loud it took Ratchet time to sort it out. It was nutritional information.

"We're fine, Soundwave." Ratchet looked up, into the blank visor. "The sparkling and I are getting quite enough energon and transfluid."

Soundwave narrowed the datastream, refined and sorted it. Sent it again. _Positive energy fields_.

"Ah, I see." Ratchet shook his head. "No, none of those. I have no friends here."

Soundwave removed his spindly hand from Ratchet's midsection and gestured to himself. The insinuation was implicit, and Ratchet felt dismayed. He had always hoped that Soundwave might take his side in the event that another Decepticon thought to casually assault him. Not that he would join in or want Ratchet for himself.

There would be no asking Megatron for protection either, not from Soundwave. The Warlord and his spymaster were beyond close, and something told Ratchet that they shared everything between them. After all, the Decepticon badge Soundwave was wearing was as old as the Cause itself. He should have suspected that what they wanted to share would include him.

Ratchet sighed, considering what the punishment for resisting might be. "Fine. Where are your apartments?"

Or maybe Soundwave would just take him in the hallway.

Soundwave didn't move, he could have been a statue, and Ratchet couldn't help but wonder how he cooled his frame, because he didn't appear to be cycling air. He pinged Ratchet again, with the refined datastream, then gestured to his own abdominal plating, drawing Ratchet's optic there.

The spymaster had no panels.

Ratchet wasn't _entirely_ surprised, and any shock he felt passed quickly. He had seen mechs without panels before. Both because they had them removed or because they had been born without them. Not all Cybertornians enjoyed or cared about interfacing, and it wasn't unheard of to encounter one who had excised their array because they couldn't be bothered with it. He wondered which was the case with Soundwave.

"You don't want to interface," Ratchet said, realizing he was staring, and then pried his optics away and looked back up into the blank visor that served as Soundwave's face.

The barest sliver of light reflected off it as Soundwave turned his head to one side, then back. _No_.

"So then you... you want me to come to your quarters to... to cuddle?"

The screen flashed. Something was displayed on it momentarily, then gone. [ :3 ]

"I..." Ratchet sputtered, he had no idea how to interpret this. His engines felt like they were going in reverse, but if it was going to help the sparkling (and get him away from Megatron, even for a night), how could he turn Soundwave down? "...yes, of course. When? I'm with Megatron most nights, but you already know that, don't you?"

Soundwave immediately pinged him to a date and directions. Then turned and left, leaving Ratchet to wonder what had just happened.

*** *** ***

The morning after his encounter with Soundwave, Ratchet was awakened by a ping from Knock Out telling him that the other medic needed him. Immediately.

It was an hour of the morning best described as 'unfortunate', and Ratchet was laying next to Megatron, one of the Warlord's heavy arms wrapped around him, possessive, even during recharge. When he tried to rise, Megatron's arm tightened.

"What does he want?" Megatron asked, not even bothering to online his optics.

"Knock Out didn't say, only that it was important." Ratchet pushed at Megatron's arm, to absolutely no avail. He was still filthy from the night before, Megatron's transfluid coating his aft and thighs, though at least he wasn't in pain. 'Immediately' was going to have to mean 'immediately after a trip to the washracks', after all, Knock Out hadn't said it was a medical emergency.

Unless Megatron was going to spike him again before he let him go.

That was not the case, the Warlord released him with a noise of annoyance, and Ratchet hated that he felt grateful for it.

An hour later he was clean and he transformed to drive to the medbay. The doors were open, and he stepped inside, looking for Knock Out.

All he found was Barricade and his crew.

"Ratch," said Barricade, nodding.

"Barricade," said Ratchet, in reply. "Where's Knock Out? There's an emergency."

"Sure is," Barricade said, keying the access panel, and moving to block the door.

Ratchet felt a razor of panic slice through his fields, the illusionary safety of the holding pattern start to slip. He worried not only for himself, but for Knock Out. Had Barricade done something to him to get him to send that comm? Was he alright? Knock Out was more of a warrior than most Autobot doctors, but there would have been nothing he could do against Barricade and his crew, who were all combat-dedicated frames. Automatically, he opened a comm channel to Soundwave, hoping that--

"Ah, Ratchet, there you are," Knock Out's drawl soothed down his ragged edges somewhat, and the other medic appeared from one of the side rooms. "Ready to go?"

Ratchet watched him warily. What was this about? Knock Out hadn't said anything about going anywhere. "Ready to go where? It's an ungodly hour of the morning, where would we go? Is the sun even up?"

"Oh," Knock Out said, with feigned innocence. "Did I forget to mention that in the comm? We're going out for a drive, to get some exercise."

"The hell we are," Ratchet's said, his engines barking out an ugly noise as they backed up.

"I knew you were going to do this," Knock Out said, "so I asked Barricade to come by as backup for exactly that reason. When was the last time you went for a drive?"

"I'll have you know I drove here just now," Ratchet snapped, in protest. "It's dark outside, and probably cold. Darkmount suits me just fine."

"Ratchet," Knock Out said, resting his hands on hips and putting on airs of being stern. He mostly failed. "Light exercise is good for the sparkling, and good for you too. You could seize up your t-cog or get atrophy in your protoflesh. We're not going _racing_ , just for a quick drive. Once around the city's perimeter. Really give our vehicle modes a nice workout."

"I hope we get ambushed by the Autobots and you all get killed," Ratchet grumbled, muttering to himself about exercise. Young mechs had no respect.

"Right there," Knock Out grinned. "That's the spirit."

*** *** ***

Despite all of his complaining, the drive went better than Ratchet thought.

When Cybertron had been at the height of its golden age, Kaon had still been a pit of filth, and a less charitable part of him refused to be surprised that Megatorn had crawled out of it. The oppression, poverty, and corruption that ran rampant in the metropolis had been the cradle that had given rise to the Decepticon Cause, and from Kaon, Megatron's message had reached across the globe.

The majority of city was still in ruins, though the Omega Lock had cleared away the smog and the film of pollution that had covered everything. The Vehicons and lower-ranking Decepticons were still clearing out the area around Megatron's citadel, though Ratchet guessed they had made enough progress to have a functional city district to build into. It looked like they were digging in, and as they passed the wall of Darkmount itself, Ratchet noticed that the outlying habitat buildings and spaceport were walled in as well.

He had been right not to try and run for it.

One of Barricade's teammates led their little procession, with Knock Out to Ratchet's left, another to the right, and Barricade bringing up the rear. There were Decepticons everywhere, more than Ratchet would have gussed. All those months he had spent cloistered inside Darkmount had left him blind to how many of Megatron's soldiers had returned to the planet. A shadow fell over the road and Ratchet guided his sensornet upwards, to the shapes of two warships attached to docking bays on the side of the citadel. He didn't know their designations, though neither was close to as impressive as the Nemesis.

As he grew more comfortable with his surroudnings, Ratchet swept his sensors out as far they would go. First, he swept for life-signals, and he got back a distressing number, there were more Decepticons in the maskeshift city than he had thought possible, and he sent a curious ping to Knock Out.

Most of Megatron's faction had pulled up as quickly as they could to return to the planet, Knock Out explained. The Omega Lock had stopped working, and while Shockwave was trying to fix it, the party line was that Megatron hadn't restored the rest of the planet to prevent the Autobots from returning and establishing their own base, somewhere out in the wilds. It was all useful information, though Ratchet had no one to give it to. Instead, he kept it on file, in case someday there was.

The area around the city had been swept clear for miles, a featureless plain. Some admiration for how quickly and tirelessly the Decepticons must have accomplished the task crept up on Ratchet, though it was quickly pressed down by disquiet. There was nowhere to hide out here, no way for and Autobot force to make the approach, just miles and miles of featureless highway. His prospects for being rescued were looking grimmer each day.

Why was he even worrying about it? If rescue was going to come, it surely would have already. Logic dictated that the Autobots had already appointed a new CMO, and maybe they had even declared him dead or unrecoverable. It wasn't as if he was essential to the Autobot Cause, he was replaceable. The thought made him miserable, even more so than usual.

It was past midday when they pulled into one of the garages under Darkmount, and Ratchet transformed back into robot mode with a sigh of relief. 

"How are you feeling?" Knock Out asked. 

"Sore," Ratchet said, rolling his shoulders. "...and disgusted with your lack of respect for your elders."

Knock Out laughed airily. "Really, Ratchet, I'm _sure_ the Autobots had some kind of fitness regimen. I mean, you probably wrote it--"

"Hey, uh, KO," Barricade cut him off and pointed. "That door supposed to be open?"

Ratchet followed Barricade's gesture with his optics, to the far wall, where a blinking warning light showed a security door that wasn't engaged. The door itself was wedged open, just a crack.

"What in the..." Knock Out crossed the garage, tapping away at the security panel, the noise from his claws echoing in the enclosed space. The light turned green, and the door slid open the rest of the way. He peered inside, and from Ratchet's angle, it looked like some kind of storage room. "There's nothing in here, but better check it out anyways. Barricade."

When Ratchet tried to stay where he was, Barricade nudged his arm. "You too, Ratch. Can't have you runnin' off."

A storage room was exactly what it turned out to be, with empty cubes and narrow boxes stacked in neat rows. To Ratchet, it looked just as empty as Knock Out's assessment, but he followed Barricade in and stayed at his side.

"Let me just check the inventory lists," Knock Out said, making his way through the stacks. Ratchet followed, flanked by Barricade's crew. "Though I doubt there's anything in here worth stealing. There's a command console in the back. I'll take a quick look."

Their whole attitude towards the situation astonished Ratchet. A potential break-in at an Autobot base would have instantly involved Optimus, and most likely, Prowl and Jazz (not that they had been on hand for millions of years, but still). The fact that Knock Out and Barricade might cover it up as long as nothing they deemed 'important' was stolen was preposterous, but he thought he understood. They were afraid to deal with Megatron. Worried about a beating (or worse) if he somehow decided to connect them to the theft, or blame them for failing to prevent it (no matter how nonsensical _that_ was). Ratchet couldn't help but to wonder what else never reached Megatron's audials. After all, Soundwave was powerful, but not omniscient.

...there would be no covering this up, because the edge of the console was pried up, and the wires underneath it had been pulled out across the keypads. Connected to the wires was a tiny laptop computer, and standing on the top of the console, working at it, were three humans.

Ratchet stood there, paralyzed, his mouth hanging open in shock. 

It even took Barricade a moment.

Two of them were wearing some kind of mesh suits, with heavier clothing thrown over them. Cybertron was to cold for the limits of human tolerance, Ratchet guessed. Curved glass masks covered their faces, though their features were still visible. Adult-sized, at his best guess, and when he recovered, he swept them with a scan. Purely out of reflex.

Nothing surprised him more than when the scan came back with a positive ID on all three of them, from some long-unused Autobot database.

_Kade Burns. Graham Burns._

The third one, the one with no breather-mask, wasn't even human. It was an Autobot in holoform, his badge flashed up onto Ratchet's HUD. 

_Heatwave._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take some liberties with just how /big/ a Cybertronian gets in dino-mode (since I believe the Rescue Bots don't actually gain much mass). 
> 
> Sorry, I like giant dinosaurs. It's a character flaw. There's also a little bit of Tarn/Kaon in the background.

"Fuuuuuuuuuck." The word came out of Kade's mouth in one long, tortured syllable. 

"Kade, run. Now." Heatwave pointed, and then jumped off the console. He transformed in mid-air, putting himself between the Decepticons, Ratchet, and the two fleeing humans. The holoform disintegrated, more light than mass. Heatwave was bigger than any of them, he was nearly Bulkhead's height, but he didn't quite equal the fallen mech in weight.

Not that it mattered, because he was no match for _one_ Decepticon, nevermind three. Rescue Bots didn't have weapon loadouts, their frames were carrying to much specialized gear to have the mods added onto everything else. Even if they didn't operate at nearly load-limit, Heatwave was outnumbered, three to one. Four, if Knock Out counted. 

Questions chased themselves around Ratchet's processor. Where had the humans come from? How had they survived? What were they doing here? Why would they risk--

The hum of partial transformation startled him, and he saw Barricade bring his arm up, flip it into a blaster. Aim it at the humans.

There would surely be a punishment for intervening, but he had no choice. Ratchet grabbed Barricade's arm, threw his weight into it, and the shot went wide. It hit one of the lightning fixtures in the ceiling and staved it inwards, glass rained down on them. One of the humans, probably Kade again, started swearing elaborately as they slid down the cabling on the side of the console, and then they were out of sight.

Barricade shoved him off, an elbow caught his cheek, and Ratchet toppled backwards, landing on his aft and scraping it badly. He felt the impact with the hard stone floor all the way up his spinal strut. Knock Out knelt down beside him, and Ratchet felt the prickle of a medical scan.

The other two Decepticons tried to jump Heatwave, and even though Ratchet thought nothing else could surprise him today, something did.

Heatwave's t-cog engaged, and he seemed to explode out of his own frame. What he could be transforming into, Ratchet couldn't even guess until he was finished. How Heatwave could even have subspaced that much mass, Ratchet didn't know, but when his feet hit the ground, it shook under his weight.

A beastmode. A dinosaur. At the shoulder, he was almost twice Ratchet's height.

So much for not being a match for Barricade's crew.

One of Barricade unfortunate friends got swatted out of the air by Heatwave's tail, her plating crumpling as she hit a stack of boxes, sank to the ground, and laid still. The other one he simply threw his whole body into, and there was a sickening crunch as the Decepticon bounced off the stone floor.

"Ratchet!" Heatwave shouted. "Come on!"

Barricade grabbed him as he started to rise, and Ratchet tried to throw him off. The car's arm came down across his throat cabling, cutting off his ventilations. Ratchet barely felt it, the will to resist had ignited somewhere deep inside his spark. Escape wasn't possible, but if they were holding him, they couldn't chase Heatwave, and while Ratchet wasn't stronger than Barricade, he weighed more. He fought as hard as he could to get free, and as they thrashed around on the floor, Barricade's fist connected with his face, the sharpened edge tearing open the delicate protoflesh.

"Get out of here!" Ratchet shouted. "Run! Help your friends!"

Knock Out grabbed his other arm and twisted it behind his back. Ratchet felt his shoulder strut protest, heard Knock Out screaming at Barricade not to hit him again. Saw Heatwave hesitate, then fold his body down, first back into robot mode, and then with a trick of light and impossible angles, into holoform. He sprinted under the console, and then he was gone.

Somewhere in the distance, Ratchet heard an alarm going off.

*** *** ***

The Decepticons didn't catch Heatwave and the humans. 

Whatever was to follow, Ratchet was at least grateful for that.

In the aftermath, Barricade and Knock Out had dragged him to his feet and cuffed his arms behind his back. With a rough shove, Barricade forced him down to his knees and told him to stay there. Ratchet had always been the outsider in their little group, and he tried to remined that neither of the Decepticons were really his friends. His face hurt and his optic was swollen shut where Barricade's fist had connected with it. A medical scan popped up with yellow damage reports. His shoulder, his knee, there was a dent in his side. At one point in the fight, Barricade had kicked him and he hadn't even noticed. He gave his frame permission to start auto-repairs on all of them.

No damage to the gestational tank, thank Primus, a but a deeper scan wouldn't hurt. He'd do one once he was back in the medbay.

"I can't believe you did that," Knock Out said. He sounded genuinely upset. Betrayed. Frightened.

Ratchet locked optics with him. "You know why I did it, Knock Out."

"I know," he said, "but I... thought we were friends."

Ratchet didn't say anything. He had used up a year's worth of goodwill in seventeen seconds, and he wondered how badly he would regret it. While he watched from where he knelt on the floor, Knock Out examined both of Barricade's friends. The one who had been thrown into the stacks was already offline and greying with death, the other was just stunned, though his arm was hanging at an ugly angle. By the time Knock Out had him on his feet, a squad of Vehicons had arrived with Soundwave. 

The spymaster pointed upwards, the direction of Megatron's command room, Ratchet guessed. Knock Out nodded to him, and drew his fields down to nil.

"Get up," Barricade said, kicking him in the side of the leg. "Walk."

Ratchet did, keeping his optics on the floor. When he had been captured, he'd deleted all of his personal backups - the location of Autobot supply storehouses, medical records, personal information- the way Jazz had taught him too. In a way, he thought he was grateful that the Decepticon's who'd caught him had been more preoccupied with raping him than preserving him for interrogation. If they had put him into stasis immediately and then delivered him to Soundwave he wouldn't have gotten the chance.

He knew there had been a Rescue Bot team on Earth, that they had been based in the Eastern United States, that they had worked with a group of humans. He knew their names, that they had a shuttle, that he had given them medical attention once - though all of the related files were long gone. Everything else had been Optimus' purview, so there was a limit to how much information Ratchet could provide, even if they forced him to submit to a cortical psychic patch. He started to get his story straight, because one way or another, he would have to give it all up. It had to be true enough that the Decepticons wouldn't question it, while simultaneously providing as little information as possible.

When they arrived, Tarn was waiting with Megatron and Ratchet felt his spark shrink back in its chamber.

Ratchet hadn't seen the DJD leader in weeks - not since the assault in Emperor's apartments. He had assumed that Tarn had gone to Earth to hunt down the Autobots and straighten Starscream out. Not the case, apparently. There was another mech with Tarn, and he was red-gold, with a slim frame and coils over his shoulders. As tall as Knock Out, but slimmer and lighter. The mech was working frantically, plugged into one of the control consoles via his spinal ports, sorting through the video of the attack, frame-by-frame.

This would be Kaon. Ratchet had seen a few grainy picts of him, but he never appeared in official propaganda the way Tarn did. Not surprising, because he was handsome after a fashion, but unremarkable, the way the old manufactured technicians were supposed to be. Not exactly movie material. The most noticeable thing about Kaon was the way his presence affected Tarn. The DJD leader had chosen his position in the room very carefully, his frame preventing Megatron from getting a clear line of sight (or fire) to his second. 

It was probably the right choice, because as the four of them were lined up in front of Megatron, even the touch of his fields made Ratchet wither. The fury boiling through them made him feel like he hanging over a smelting pit. Ratchet stood at one end of the horizontal line, Knock Out to his right, then Barricade, then Barricade's injured teammate, energon dripping from his torn arm down onto the floor.

"Explain," was all Megatron said, the threat of violence hanging heavily in the air.

"Megatron--" Ratchet said.

"Lord Megatron--" Knock Out said at the same time.

The back of Megatron's hand connected with Knock Out's face so violently that it shattered his porcelain-white faceplate. He didn't so much crumple under the force of the blow as he was thrown backwards, his frame spinning before he hit the ground, prone. Knock Out's engines stuttered, and he lay there, stunned.

Megatron raised his right arm, aimed, and Ratchet heard the fusion cannon prime with a low whine. He didn't want to think about what it would do to Knock Out at this range. At the very least, it would be instantaneous.

Primus, was this what every Decepticon mission debriefing was like?

"I'm still waiting for my explanation," Megatron said, his optics boiling as he glared at Ratchet.

"Just tell me what you want to hear and I'll say it." Ratchet's shoulder was in agony, he wished Barricade and Knock Out hadn't cuffed him. His knee wasn't much better, he doubted he'd be able to walk without limping, and he tried not to think about what was going to happen in Megatron's berth tonight.

"Where did the humans come from?! How could they have survived?!"

 _Why do you care so much?_ Ratchet thought. It wasn't as if two humans would be able to repopulate the species, even if they hadn't been close genetic relatives. It wasn't the answer that Megatron wanted, so Ratchet thought up a plausible lie.

"There was a Rescue Bot team on Earth," he said, and his engines stuttered, but not his voice, "they had a shuttle. I have to assume they evacuated their human partners when the disaster struck."

It was the best kind of lie. One that was very likely true.

"If they had a ship that was space-worthy, why didn't Optimus use it flee the planet?"

"Their ship was Sigma-class, long range, but it's not a warship." Ratchet saw something flicker on Soundwave's visor, and then vanish. The shuttle schematics, most likely. "We wouldn't have all fit on it. It would have meant leaving someone behind."

"If they're Rescue Bots," Megatron growled, but he lowered the fusion canon, and Ratchet felt the tension ease, if only a fraction. He pointed at the footage of the storage room, which Kaon had paused. "Then what is _that_? I didn't think your precious do-gooder teams were beastformers."

"They were Optimus' teams, and I don't know. That's... Megatron, I don't know how he did that." Ratchet thrust about for some sort of explanation, anything to keep the fusion cannon down and Megatron's attention focused on him instead of Knock Out. Barricade was looking straight ahead, at nothing, expressionless. Ratchet wasn't going to get any help from him. "He's not a dinobot. Maybe he was exposed to a Primal artifact. Something from the Ark or the Hall of Records. One that neither side knew about."

"Even Astrotrain and Blast Off can't subspace that much mass," Tarn remarked, turning his mask up towards the holoscreen. "Does he have another alt-mode?"

"A fire truck," Ratchet said. It wasn't giving Heatwave up, they would have figured that out from the video. "Earth-based, though originally a Cybertronian vehicle."

"What's his name?" Tarn asked.

"Heatwave," Ratchet said. He couldn't lie. Heatwave had called him by name, Tarn already knew that they knew each other.

"And the humans? What are _their_ names?" Kaon scrolled through the video and brought up a frame, and focused on them, bringing Kade and Graham into focus. Tarn gazed up at them, curious. And curiosity was a reaction that worried Ratchet far more than blind rage.

"I don't know," he lied, though he found some truth to wrap it in to make it more palatable to Tarn. "I disliked organics. I tried to deal with them as little as possible. I encouraged Optimus to cut ties with humanity many times."

"I think you're lying--"

"What does it matter if the insects have names or not?!" Megatron cut Tarn off, his voice echoing through the chamber. "What did they steal from me?!"

"Video footage, Lord Megatron." Kaon had been silent up until this point, but he spoke now. His voice was full of static, and it seemed to pop and buzz like some alien frequency. The little mech was holding onto a great deal of electricity, by Ratchet's estimation. He wondered if that was what had happened to Kaon's optics. "A great deal of it, all Soundwave's recordings. Very probable is that the original footage of the battle over the Omega Lock is among what was taken. Not that they took it so much as _copied_ it, but I digress..."

Video footage? Why? Heatwave must have had something in mind, but Ratchet doubted he'd risk the life of his human partner over clearing Optimus' name. Not to mention his own life, and the lives of his team. So what had he been thinking? He stole a glance at Knock Out, who was propped up on one arm, trying to clear energon and what Ratchet guessed were broken shards of his faceplate out of his mouth. Alive, thank Primus. Maybe he'd be allowed to fix him, and Ratchet could try and salvage their relationship.

"...used a modified human computing platform to gain access. Somewhat ingenious, since our systems are designed to repel attacks from other Cybertronians. Now, once they were inside the system--"

"Kaon," said Tarn, sternly. Ratchet blinked, was Kaon still talking?

"Yes, of course." Kaon tapped a command code into the console, and the display changed. "Nothing that appears to be _sensitive_ , Lord Megatron. If it pleases you, Soundwave can confirm. They won't be able to gain access again."

"So they gained nothing." Megatron laughed. "Your friends are as incompetent as they are foolish, Ratchet. No wonder you lost the war."

No they aren't, Ratchet thought, though he didn't dare to vocalize a protest. The whole scenario spoke to him like a greying frame did during an autopsy, telling an entire story without the need for words. Why steal video footage and not _valuable_ information - such as the location of Decepticon energon caches, off-planet mines, or unguarded bases - unless Heatwave somehow had access to all the energon he needed? Shanix traded poorly on the galactic markets, but if he could access Darkmount, surely he could have stolen enough credit sticks or silver to buy a lifetime supply of food and water for two humans. And at far less risk to himself and others. So why take recordings unless there was already a safe place for them to return to?

They had come for a reason, Ratchet was certain. They had known exactly what they were doing, even if he had no idea what their endgame was.

"Remind me," said Tarn, who was gazing up at the holoscreens, and Ratchet felt a gnawing worry that he was coming to same conclusions, "where Starscream is?"

Perhaps more than anything, that was what drew Megatron's attention away from Knock Out and Barricade.

*** *** ***

That night, Tarn went to Earth and promised to return with answers, Autobot heads, or both.

Ratchet couldn't help but notice the way he helped Kaon disconnect and offered his arm to the smaller mech, to escort him. There was something between them, but platonic or romantic, he couldn't tell. All Ratchet could do was hope that Starscream knew how to handle him. He wouldn't wish Tarn on anyone.

Megatron didn't take the cuffs off when he took Ratchet back to his apartments, and by that time, his shoulder was screaming at him. The auto-repair was trying to reconnect wiring that Barricade had bent out of place and it couldn't compensate. He was still limping, and when he didn't walk fast enough to please Megatron, the Warlord shoved him. Ratchet prayed he wouldn't fall, without his arms free, he doubted he'd be able to rise without begging Megatron for help, something that the other mech would be sure to make as humiliating as possible. Halfway there, Ratchet triggered the lubrication cycle. He was getting good at timing it.

The door hissed open and Megatron mechhandled him down so he was kneeling over the berth, his chestplates pressed into the padding. Once he was down, Ratchet irised his valve panels open, there was no point in delaying the inevitable. The lubricants that were alreayd pooling started to drip down his thighs. He heard the click of Megatron's spike panel, felt Megatron's hand come down on his back, to hold him still.

"You belong to me," Megatron said, the head of his spike pressing into Ratchet's valve folds, parting them slightly. "A piece of property. A prize of war."

"You've made that inescapably clear, Megatron, thank you." Ratchet braced himself for the thrust, but considering his position, found it hard to balance on anything.

"Apparently not clear enough." Megatron's hips worked in a slow circle, pressing at him without pushing in, then pulling back to rub his spike over Ratchet's aft. "You tried to escape after you said you wouldn't."

"I said I _couldn't_ ," Ratchet snapped. "And I didn't. I got into a fight with Barricade, I wasn't trying to escape."

"It's clever," Megatron said, "the way you lie out of the side of your mouth. You would have made an excellent Decepticon."

"If you think--" The rest of the words were lost in a cry as Megatron's spike filled him to the hilt, and Ratchet gritted his teeth to stop himself from giving Megatron the pleasure of hearing another. As Megatron drew back, then slammed back into him, Ratchet balled his hands into fists, hoping that Megatron finished quickly and took the cuffs off, his auto-repair was starting to glitch.

"You're still holding onto the hope of being rescued." Megatron angled his hips, plunging into Ratchet again, striking his ceiling node, making his legs shake. "It will never happen. The war is over, you lost."

Ratchet tried to focus on the way Megatron was jarring his shoulder, to give him something to distract himself from the thick, heavy spike that was filling him and the clang of Megatron's plating against his aft.

"What, medic? No clever answer to that?" Megatron chuckled darkly, then made a pleased noise. "It doesn't matter, I'll never grow bored of your frame."

"Primus, forfend that should happen." Megatron couldn't see his face, so Ratchet rolled his optics. Hot pressure was building in his valve, and lubricant that had nothing to do with an automatic cycle flowing freely, mixing with Megatron's pre-fluid and dripping down his thighs. It was just programming, and that was a result of the carriage telling him he should overload for the sire, but it disgusted Ratchet all the same. "Are you about finished back there?"

"Not nearly," Megatron returned, his claws trailing over Ratchet's aft. "I've found that I don't like to leave my precious carrier unsatisfied."

"Then you must experience constant disappointment," Ratchet snapped, he struggled to get away, to stop the heat that was growing in him as he shuddered around Megatron's spike. He had hoped the discomfort of the cuffs would be enough to stop it, but apparently not.

Megatron laughed, gripping Ratchet by the hips and jerking him back to fill him deeply. He'd told himself he wouldn't cry out again, but the slow grind of Megatron's spike against his ceiling node wrenched a whimper from his vocalizer. His hands were pinned behind his back, flexing and and grasping as he slid uncontrollably towards overload. 

When the overload finally rose up and overwhelmed him, at least he managed not to lose control of his vocalizer, even as he felt the flood of sensation and bliss crawl through his entire frame. His valve shuddered and tightened around Megatron's spike, clamping down to draw him deeper inside - not that it could, Megatron was already bottomed out inside him. He felt the swell, the rush of hot transfluid, and the sudden, desperate ache of being empty as Megatron pulled free to let the pulses spatter onto Ratchet's aft and thighs.

Satisfied, Megatron grabbed the cuffs and wielded him down onto the floor, dropping him at the side of the berth. 

"Until you remember that your place is at my side," he said. "You can recharge here."

Megatron wasn't, Ratchet realized, going to take the cuffs off.

Fine.

Ratchet wasn't going to beg either. He set his jaw and looked away. There was an empty cube under one of the storage cabinets. The cleaners, whoever they were, had missed it. He heard the creak as Megatron got into his berth. Felt agony and numbness warring it out in his shoulder. Offlined his auto-repairs, they weren't going to help unless someone cut him loose. Thought about Heatwave and the humans.

Once again, he didn't recharge at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (later)
> 
> Ratchet: "How are you a dinobot?! How is that even /possible/?!"  
> Heatwave: "Oh, yeah, Optimus taught me. Didn't he teach you too?"  
> Ratchet: :|


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [SunnySidesofBlue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnySidesofBlue/profile) has been generous enough to help me edit this, so hopefully my grammar won't be plaguing people any longer. :D
> 
> So, Heatwave did say Kade's name last chapter, and Tarn is pretty sure he knows it, but he's not 100% sure if it was a human term or a nickname or something.
> 
> The Cybertronian language has no perfect analogies for the words 'fuck' or 'shitlord', something which Barricade considers a great tragedy. Frag comes close, but it lacks the versatility of 'fuck'.

When Ratchet lived on Cyberton, he had not been a complicated mech. He had lived in the faculty apartments at the Academy of Iacon, apartments that were a little small for a mech of his status, but that were comfortable, well-appointed, and cozy.

After he and Pharma had become cojunx endura, the jet wouldn't hear of living in faculty apartments, so Ratchet had reluctantly said goodbye to them and moved into a larger apartment in the city.

Sharing a berth with Pharma had been a constant negotiation. Simplicity put Ratchet at ease, while Pharma was, in a word, fussy. He had needed an increasingly complicated arrangement of blankets and pillows to nest in, in order to get comfortable. 

Once they had crash-landed on Earth, there was nothing even resembling a proper berth in the missile silo, and Ratchet had eventually resigned himself to being uncomfortable. Recharge became a luxury, and he was rarely able to cycle his rest-state properly unless he was with Optimus. That simple act brought with it its own set of complications. They could only be together rarely, as they both agreed that the less humans learned of Cybertronian physiology, the better. It was one of the few points regarding humans on which he and Optimus had agreed.

Megatron had, at first, been content to allow him to crawl away following an assault and recharge on the floor. After the first few weeks, discomfort was no longer a factor in Ratchet's ability to enter recharge, he was literally to numb and exhausted to care. In the morning, he would pretend to be offline until Megatron left, unless the Warlord decided to assault him again and dragged him back onto the berth or took him where he lay. 

When he had learned about the carriage, Megatron had ordered Ratchet to sleep on the berth with him. Not, Ratchet thought, because Megatron was concerned about his health and comfort, but because this was another way that he could exert power over him. Trying to recharge while he was lying next to the Decepticon leader was terrifying, and the feeling of Megatron's fields arcing through his sensornet had kept Ratchet from recharging for days.

In fits and starts, he had gotten used to it. The carriage had helped; it wanted him to stay close to the sire. As it progressed, Megatron's presence became less of a cause of terror, and Ratchet had learned to recharge while he was curled into the Warlord's side. 

Optimus surely hated him for that. Primus knew Ratchet hated himself for it.

None of it could compare to the night he spent cuffed on the floor at the foot of Megatron's berth. It was such a simple thing that Ratchet felt ashamed over how badly it was affecting him. Surely in four million years of war, he had experienced worse discomforts? 

That thought didn't help, there was nothing he could recall.

He hurt everywhere. His left optic was swollen shut, the protoflesh of his cheek caked with dried energon. The dent in his side, where Barricade had kicked him during their fight, felt like he was being jabbed whenever he cycled air. Ratchet's hands, cuffed behind his back, were numb and his shoulder was alternately agonizing or shorting out and peppering him with damage reports. Compared to everything else, he barely felt the ache in his knee.

Hunger was gnawing at his fuel tanks. Complaining about that seemed petty, but while Ratchet had been on slender rations before, he had never starved. Megatron had dragged him back to his apartments immediately after what passed for a 'debriefing' among the Decepticons, and Knock Out hadn't wanted to fuel up before the drive around the city. It meant he hadn't had any energon since the morning before, and combined with the fact that he had let his auto-repair run for so long, his energy levels were dipping towards red.

The rapes that had sent him to the medbay unconscious had, at least, been over relatively quickly. The encounter with Tarn had lasted barely more than an hour and thankfully, Megatron had eventually ordered his executioner out. This seemed like it would never end.

Twice, Ratchet had checked his internal chronometer and found it read barely five minutes after the last time he checked. After that, he had disabled it in frustration. All he could do was try to focus on making as little noise as possible. If he woke Megatron there would be consequences, most likely the least of which would be another assault. 

During the night, his mind drifted. He wondered where Arcee, Bumblebee, and Smokescreen were. Perhaps they had escaped the planet and a new Prime had already been chosen. He thought about Jazz and Prowl and Ironhide, where they were and if they were safe. Perceptor, who had been one of his fellow professors at the Academy, was profoundly unsuited to warfare and Ratchet hoped he'd found somewhere safe to spend the last few million years. Pharma--

No, he didn't want to think about Pharma.

When Megatron finally rose from his berth, it seemed to Ratchet that an eternity had passed, but when he engaged his chronometer and checked, it had barely been six hours. The Decepticon Emperor was a busy mech, and he recharged sparingly.

"Megatron," Ratchet said, when he heard the Warlord's feet hit the floor. His voice sounded feeble, and he rebooted his vocalizer as Megatron's shadow fell across him. Even that made him want to flinch away.

"Yes, dear Ratchet? Did you recharge well? Anything you need?" Megatron's voice was full of false concern.

"The cuffs," Ratchet said, because everything else that was wrong with him, Knock Out could fix in the medbay. "Please, Megatron."

Megatron grinned and reached down, gripping Ratchet by his shoulder plating and pulling him up so he was resting on his knees. "Did you miss spending the night in your master's berth?"

"Yes," Ratchet lied, loathing the other mech, but knowing it was what Megatron wanted to hear. "I did."

"Then show me how much," Megatron said, gesturing to his spike panel. 

Positioned on his knees, Ratchet was already uncomfortably close to it, and while he loathed taking Megatron in his mouth, he loathed the cuffs more. He wanted them off before they did permanent damage to his shoulders, his hands, or both.

Rationalizing that there was no other choice if he wanted he cuffs off, Ratchet leaned forward, flicking his tongue over the seams of the closed panel. Megatron moaned softly, rocking his hips into the touch, and Ratchet could taste the remains of their encounter last night, his own lubricants mixed with Megatron's transfluid, still clinging to the panel.

When the panel slid away a moment later, one of Megatron's hands came down, heavy and firm, to hold the back of Ratchet's head. His spike wasn't yet pressurized. It was a rare sight for Ratchet, who had taken to assuming that Megatron walked around in a state of unsatisfied, semi-permanent arousal. It certainly would have explained his mood. 

Closing his mouth over the housing that sheathed the organ, he swirled his tongue around the sensitive head, teasing it out until it was fully pressurized against his lips. Like his panel, Megatron's spike was still covered with transfluid and lubricant that was both Ratchet's and the thinner variety designed to help ease the spike out of its sheath. The mixture wasn't dried, but it was stale from the night before and Ratchet tried not to gag.

"You're good at this, Autobot, and you make a pleasing picture when you're down on your knees." Megatron's hand stroked Ratchet's head in a sick parody of affection. Ratchet doubted the Decepticon had a clear line of sight, so he rolled his optics.

Having his hands free would have helped, both to get Megatron off and end this more quickly and to use to control how deeply the Warlord could thrust into his mouth. Neither was possible here, and though the limit of Ratchet's comfort was about the first third of Megatron's spike, as soon as he closed his lips over it, Megatron jerked sharply into his mouth, bumping at the opening of his main intake.

There was little he could do but clench his fists and try to endure it, and his hands were so numb that the act sent a painful buzz across his sensornet. As Megatron's spike slid back and forth between his lips, he concentrated on keeping his dental chips out of the way. Megatron already thought he had tried to escape, there was no telling what he might do if he thought Ratchet had attacked him. 

The first drops of transfluid that landed on his tongue were warm, and revoltingly, Ratchet was hungry enough that he felt his frame urging him to swallow. 

Megatron must have felt it when he did, because he grinned down at Ratchet. 

"More?" he asked.

 _Primus, no_ , Ratchet thought, though he kept that off the comm. It wasn't like he could pull away to answer, Megatron's grip on his head was like iron, and even if Ratchet hadn't been cuffed, the Warlord was stronger than he was by several degrees. 

As Megatron's thrusts sped up, his other hand came down to hold Ratchet's head as well, pulling him forward into each thrust, the head of his spike abusing the dermal mesh around the medic's intake.

When he felt the spike in his mouth swell, Ratchet tried to brace himself, but there was nothing to stop Megaton from pushing the head of his spike down his intake as he cried out in overload. Ratchet choked and spasmed, the Warlord's transfluid searing him as it erupted from the twitching spike. 

If Megatron had not been the sire of the sparkling he carried, Ratchet was sure he would have purged, and for the first time he was grateful for the programming that came along with the carriage, it was the only thing that made swallowing the thick deluge of transfluid possible.

Finished, Megatron dropped him, and while Ratchet had intended to remain upright, he collapsed against the floor. 

"Good enough," the Warlord announced, and reached down, turning him over. 

There was enough hesitation that Ratchet almost slid his valve panel open, but he was glad he hadn't when Megatron triggered some mechanism and the cuffs snapped free, clattering to the floor. 

The relief was indescribable. Shaking, Ratchet pulled his arms around and curled in on himself, bolts of pain mixed with pinprick sensations as feeling returned to his arms. He engaged a medical scan and checked his hands, desperately hoping no permanent damage had been done. 

"Thank you," Ratchet gasped. It was what Megatron wanted to hear and some part of him meant it. He tried not to blame Knock Out and Barricade for cuffing him in the first place, since he needed to make good with them too.

"Its good to see that you're learning your place, dear Ratchet." Megatorn turned, and Ratchet heard the click of his panels as his spike retracted. 

Ratchet found he had no immediate desire to rise from the floor, and while he listened to Megatron in the washrack he massaged his hands and surveyed his auto-repair queue. 'Dire' would have been the best way to describe his energy levels, and he didn't dare engage any of the waiting repairs. 

Once Megatron had left, he rose and limped into the washrack, turning the flow to the highest setting and slumping down onto the bench while the water ran over him. He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to rise, and he wondered how much more of this he could take before Megatron broke him. Assuming he hadn't already.

It was an hour later when he worked up the will to leave the washrack. He needed to go to the medbay and see Knock Out, and he had hesitated long enough.

Ratchet limped to the doors.

...but this morning they didn't open.

*** *** ***

That afternoon, for the first time, Ratchet saw the mechs who cleaned Megatron's apartments. 

At first he had assumed the door was just malfunctioning, and commed Soundwave. The only response was that Ratchet should wait, and so he did, worry gnawing at him. 

To be held prisoner was bad enough, but so far, he had at least been allowed to work, to carry out the function that he had emerged from the Well with. Spending the rest of his life as Megatron's berth slave was a dire thought, but the thought of spending that time locked in Megatron's apartments was even worse. Going to the medbay in the morning was the only respite he had. 

A petty part of him wanted to destroy Megatron's things out of spite, but the Warlord owned very little and Ratchet didn't want to invite further punishments. 

It was mid-afternoon when the doors hissed open and Soundwave strode in noiselessly, revealing that that they weren't malfunctioning at all. There was a squad of Vehicons with him, and they looked meek, quelled. A quick scan told Ratchet that none of them had weapon loadouts. A punishment detail, or something of the sort.

Soundwave addressed the Vehicons with a gesture, and while Ratchet got nothing from it, they seemed to understand. They immediately started cleaning the apartments, scrubbing out the washrack, clearing away empty cubes, and replacing the dirty padding on the berth with a clean one.

"Soundwave," Ratchet said, debating about where he wanted to start as the spymaster's visor turned to 'face' him. "Is Knock Out alright?"

Soundwave's visor flickered as he approached, something swirling in the darkness there before an image appeared. It was the bridge of a Cybertronian ship, one that Ratchet didn't recognize, but Knock Out was there, working at a console and looking despondent. His faceplate was still cracked, almost beyond repair. After a moment, Ratchet picked out Tarn's figure in the primary command throne, along with a white-purple mech he had never seen before sitting in the secondary one. 

"Who's that?" Ratchet asked. "Someone else from the DJD?"

The image changed to a still, a cityscape, from before the war. _Vos_. 

"Ah, I see. Thank you, Soundwave." Ratchet nodded to him and Soundwave tilted his visor in return. There would be no making amends with Knock Out at the moment.

Soundwave didn't seem to be part of the actual cleaning staff, and Ratchet guessed he was here only to observe. Or perhaps to make sure a Vehicon didn't decide to harass or assault the Autobot prisoner as some sort of petty revenge against Megatron. There was no reason not to try and get all the information Soundwave was willing to give.

"Was Knock Out very upset?"

This time, Soundwave's visor went dark, no picture, just sound. 

"I wish he hadn't done that," Knock Out's voice, harsh with anger. There were metal-on-metal sounds in the background, and Ratchet could pick out the noises of surgery even without a video feed. Knock Out was reattaching the arm of Barricade's friend. "What was he even thinking?"

"Dunno what _you_ thought was gonna happen." Barricade now, sounding just like he always did, like nothing could get to him. "Ain't like Megs can fuck the Autobot out of him."

"Hey!" Knock Out tapped something, a scalpel maybe. "Don't let Tarn hear you using human words, Barricade. You _know_ how he feels about that."

"You're one to talk," Barricade shot back. "You better kill your goddamn backups before he catches you watching some stupid human movie or listening to that K-pop scrap and has his shitlord buddies run a train on you."

"I..." A long pause. "You're right. I don't know when I'll be back, or even if he'll let me come back. Assuming Megatron ever lets Ratchet out of his sight again, can you keep an optic on him for me?"

Soundwave cut the recording off, and Ratchet felt an almost absurd swell of affection for the other medic. He wished that things had been different, and that the Autobots had found him before Megatron had. More than that, he wondered if Knock Out would be safe. Was there even a way to plead his case to Megatron? Knock Out was even smaller than he was, and the thought of him having to endure Tarn's attentions in a berth was upsetting. 

"Soundwave," Ratchet said, "am I allowed to leave? I need to go to the medbay. I'm injured."

The slightest tilt of the visor, right to left. _No_.

So much for that. Still, Knock Out was gone, and Megatron had no other medics Ratchet knew of. The Warlord had been too hasty to dole out unwarranted punishment to his physician, and now was going to have to let Ratchet out sooner or later. Especially if he wanted to keep his troops in any condition to hold onto the planet. Ratchet didn't say anything, maybe it was something he could hold in reserve.

"I understand that you can't go against Megatron," Ratchet said, trying for a diplomatic soloution, and wondering if Soundwave could even be won over. "But if you could bring me a medkit and a few tools, I could do the patches here while you observed."

Soundwave's response was a series of low clicking noises, and his cables extended, one of them artfully plucking a datapad out of subspace and handing it to Ratchet. He took it, turning it on and making a few notes as quickly as possible before handing it back.

Light glinted off Soundwave's visor as it inclined, and the spymaster left with the Vehicons in tow. 

Ratchet wondered who would return first, and hoped it wasn't Megatron.

*** *** ***

Heatwave set Kade down next to Graham, and his partner immediately started complaining.

"I don't see why we have to do whatever Starscene says." Safe inside the confines of the Jackhammer, Kade paused to pull off his breather mask and disconnect it. "We can just move Griffon Rock again."

"His name isn't--" Heatwave began.

"Naw," said Wheeljack as he engaged the engines and took the ship upwards in a smooth arc, "that works just fine. Starscene. I like it. Definitely plays."

"His name is Star _scream_ ," Heatwave said, more firmly this time. "And we can't move Griffon Rock again. Graham, Kade needs you to explain this all again."

Graham's mask was foggy from running, and he was kneeling on the arm of the secondary piloting throne, breathing heavily. PH.D. candidates didn't have the same fitness regimen as firefighters, it seemed. Kade leaned over and pulled Graham's mask off, helped him disconnect, and then rubbed his back.

"Don't keel over on us, bro."

"I'm fine, Kade. I'm alright." Graham adjusted his glasses and straightened up, only to immediately clutch his side. "Just... maybe no more marathons for a little while."

"Right," said Kade, "but we can't move the island again because why?"

"Because we blew through almost our entire power reserves moving it the first time. Not to mention what it took to modify the town's disaster shields so we could absorb the output from the Omega Lock. The energy from the quantum crystals under the island needs to be calibrated precisely, or it could generate a sub-atomic burst field that--"

"Yeesh," Kade said, rolling his eyes, "I'm sorry I asked."

"But the biggest reason," Graham said, forging ahead, "is that Starscream would just find us again. Even if we could hide from the Nemesis indefinitely, eventually the main Decepticon force will return to colonize or reinforce Earth. We need permanent solutions, not temporary ones."

Kade made a face. "...so then, what? Starscream and his Decepticons are the good guys? They want to stop all the bad Decepticons?"

"Really no such thing as a 'good Decepticon', kid." Wheeljack glanced over at Kade. "But if Screamer wants to off Megatron, I can dance to that tune."

"I dunno," said Kade. "You seem pretty alright for a Decepticon."

Heatwave groaned, and rubbed his forehead with one hand, feeling the familiar flash of affection-annoyance that always came hand-in-hand with Kade. "Wheeljack isn't a Decepticon."

"S'true," Wheeljack, reaching up and tapping the explosive collar that was welded around his neck. "I'm an Autobot too. Just on, uh, let's call it 'work release'."

"The thing that I don't understand," Graham said, patting his laptop, "is that if Starscream is part of the Decepticon High Command, couldn't he access this information himself?"

"Either that or he's trying to cover something else up," Heatwave muttered, "and I suspect we'll get to hear all about it once we get back to Earth."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay, but no worries, this fic isn't dead. Just had some personal stuff going on.
> 
> Some brief mentions of Kade/Heatwave and Knock Out/Starscream in this Chapter, though the latter may just be happening in Starscream's head.

When Wheeljack's fist connected with his face, Heatwave staggered backwards until he hit the wall that formed the outer hull of the ship. The Wrecker was smaller than Heatwave was, but Wheeljack punched above his weight class.

"You goddamn slagger," Wheeljack said, his vocalizer pitched with anger. "You call yourself an Autobot?"

"Wheeljack," Heatwave said, shaking his head and getting his balance, "if you had gone down there, Starscream would have blown your collar."

"If I had gone down there, Barricade and Knock Out would be fragging dead, and we'd have Ratchet." Cold, dangerous anger was venting out into the Wrecker's fields, and as Heatwave wiped a smear of energon off his cheek, he realized they were in a very confined space. "Where the hell do you get off leaving Ratchet behind and then not _telling_ me the 'Cons had him until we're already off planet?"

"I had the humans with me," Heatwave insisted. "I had to make the call I thought was right. If we'd been caught--"

"You _did_ get caught," Wheeljack snapped. "Soundwave saw them, which means everyone saw them. So if your plan was to get your boyfriend on the 'Con's most wanted lists, you succeeded at that."

"Kade isn't--"

Wheeljack silenced him with a look.

"Fine." Heatwave sighed. "It's complicated, but it doesn't change what happened. Wheeljack, he told me to go. I had already tipped my hand with dino-mode, but what was I supposed to do, kill them all? One of them was a medic."

"That'd be Knock Out, he's not a medic, and him and I are gonna have words." Wheeljack's engines ground out an ugly noise. "And by that I mean I'm gonna put him in the ground, right next to his slagger conjunx."

The white racer hit the release for the door and it opened. They must have been making more noise than Heatwave thought, because Kade and Graham were waiting outside, looking worried.

"What was that all about?" Graham asked.

"Yeah, what were you talking about without us?" Kade looked between them, his expression demanding.

"Robot stuff," said Wheeljack as he stepped over them, heading back towards the control room. "Stay out of it."

*** *** ***

[Starscream, I can't talk much, but you need to know that Tarn is on his way to Earth. I think--] Knock Out wondered how much more he could say without triggering a tantrum, a barrage of angry insults, or both. [--I think to murder you in what will likely be the most preposterous way he can come up with.]

[Knock Out,] Starscream's voice crackled out of the comm, haughty and poised. Entirely to loud. [You _abandon_ me on this filthy organic planet, ignore me for over a year, and _that's_ all you have to say? I'm insulted, _doctor_. With an attitude like that, this relationship is not going to work.]

Knock Out wanted to reach through the console and throttle the Seeker. [I didn't _abandon_ you. It's not like Megatron gave _me_ a choice about any of this. So, whatever you're up to, you had better sanitize the Nemesis before we get there. I hate to think what Tarn would do to both of us if he discovered my little... 'project'.]

As though the thought of the Decepticon Justice Division coming for his head was of no concern, Starscream continued speaking. [Ah, yes. _That_. You should know that I have it all well in hand. Did you ever find a gestational tank? Because I swear that idiot is more squeamish about same-frame interfacing than he is about torture or reanimating the dead. It makes no sense.]

[No suck luck,] Knock Out said. [I thought Ratchet might know where to find one, but it was a dead end. They weren't exactly the kinds of things that were a high priority for looters during the Exodus. Where is Cylas anyways? Is there somewhere you can keep him while we're there?]

[Knock Out, I said I would take care of it and I did. Have a little faith. Cylas is completely secure, Tarn won't find him. Why you'd even consider letting that... that thing frag a litter into you is beyond me, but he's secured. Off-site. Do you think I'm an idiot?]

[That depends, are you still using Airachnid's stasis pod as a footrest?]

[I'll... get back to you. There's one small thing I need to take care of.] The comm crackled, then went dead.

*** *** ***

Soundwave returned to the apartments before Megatron did.

At first, Ratchet assumed that the spymaster would want to observe directly, and he explained to Soundwave what each tool and its purpose was. After about a minute of this, Soundwave had turned his back and walked away. He pressed a hidden panel in the featureless wall of Megatron's quarters and folded a computer console out, then he sat down and started working.

Ratchet was left to wonder if he had been boring Megatron's third in command or if, for Soundwave, direct observation was superfluous.

He knew how to take a hint though, and he worked on the repairs in silence after that.

There was a half-size cube of medical grade energon in the kit, and Ratchet drank the entire thing without complaint. After that, his knee was first, which he opened so he could realign the joint and oil the transformation seams. There was a shot of pain medication in the kit and he administered that too. Next, he popped out the dent in his side. The cry that escaped his lips as it righted didn't attract Soundwave's attention, despite the fact that the eerie mech was sitting only a few feet away. The damage to his hands was, thank Primus, merely cosmetic, but just to be sure, Ratchet oiled each joint and checked the range of motion.

As he worked, Ratchet wondered about Heatwave. Was he safe? Where had he escaped to? How long could he outrun Tarn? Rescue Bots were, to some extent, a sort of Special Ops unit, but they weren't military personnel. How had he acquired a beastmode? It hadn't been a holoform trick or a projection, the Decepticon Heatwave had crushed down in the storage room proved that. Where was the rest of his team?

Were they working with the Fleet? Was anyone going to come for him?

Ratchet had never seriously considered taking his own life at any point during his imprisonment. The early months had passed in a grey blur. There had been little on his mind other than Optimus and that Primus frowned on those who returned to the Well by their own hand. He didn't even remember what had happened to the seals and bolt for his gestational tank, but surely Megatron had ordered Knock Out to remove them the moment he had learned of its existence. An execution had likely never been in the cards, despite Megatron's occasional threats. It was a shame, because an execution was his only hope of seeing Optimus again.

Then the carriage had happened, the first Cybertronian life created since the Well had shut down. Despite everything that came attached to it, Ratchet cared for the sparkling in a way that had nothing to do with programming, and some treasonous part of him wished Megatron did too.

The wish was shameful, because killing Megatron was something Ratchet _had_ considered, at great length. Two things stood in the way.

The first was that there were even worse tyrants waiting in the wings.

Tarn, whose madness eclipsed Megatron's. Starscream, who was brilliant as a tactician and Air Commander, but who was emotionally unstable and widely disliked. Shockwave, with his esoteric obsessions and complete lack of morality. Overlord, who was lost somewhere in distant space but still too close for Ratchet's comfort. And those were only the ones who came to mind immediately.

With their position so tenuous, a civil war between the Decepticons might well spell the end of the Cybertronian race. It was why Megatron took such pains to appear unassailable and all-powerful, and considering the circumstances, Ratchet hardly blamed him. The threat of having their homeworlds cyberformed with the Omega Lock had kept the Black Block Consortium and the Galactic Council at bay for the time being, but organic races were predatory, and they would strike the moment they saw a weakness. Not to mention that they would eventually grow bold enough to try despite the threat of the Lock. The situation might explain Starscream's absence, as Megatron was in no position to deal with his scheming or assassination attempts, even as distractions.

Fear of assassination might also explain the appeal Megatron saw in taking an Autobot captive to his berth every night. Ratchet had never considered himself unattractive, and he had never had any trouble finding companionship, but he was under no illusion that there were Decepticons far more handsome than he was. Decepticons to whom Megatron had immediate access, like Knock Out, Tarn, and Starscream, but that would be, to borrow a human phrase, like letting a wolf into your house.

The second obstacle in any assassination plot was that Ratchet didn't think it was _possible_.

The Decepticon leader clearly had no problem recharging next to someone who loathed him. In Kaon, the mechs who ran the arenas had owned all manner of slaves that were given to the gladiators for their personal use, and Ratchet assumed Megatron had grown accustomed to it there. Perhaps he had even come to enjoy it, since the Warlord did it every night. Ratchet had never been a warrior, and even if he was, the prospects for cutting Megatron's throat during a recharge cycle seemed grim. The Warlord cycled under lightly, his fields never quite growing lax, and the sound of a t-cog engaging or a blade being drawn from subspace would wake him.

Poision would be his best chance, but Ratchet found the very thought unsavory. Using his medical knowledge to engineer a plague or a targeted poison went against everything he stood for as a medic. Not only that, but Dark Energon was an insurmountable unknown in the equation. If Megatron could even be harmed by poison or disease, Ratchet had no idea. He had never been allowed to access Megatron's medical files, and now Knock Out was gone. An attempt to poison Megatron might do nothing more than enrage him, and a plague was like an artillery barrage that had gone off without a firing solution. Once released, it would be out of Ratchet's control.

If he couldn't kill himself and he couldn't kill Megatron, what remained was staying alive until he could be rescued, and if he could manage it, putting himself in a position where he could offer help to the Autobots.

In his mind's eye, he saw Heatwave looking back at him, worried and desperate.

The Rescue Bot had asked Ratchet to come with him. It meant there was somewhere to go.

Megatron didn't have the Matrix.

"Soundwave," Ratchet said, taking in a deep vent. "I need your help with something."

Noiselessly, Soundwave rose from where he sat and glided over to Ratchet. The spymaster's motions were elegant and fluid, like ripples in clear water, and his feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Soundwave stopped in front of the couch, tilting his visor down towards Ratchet, then towards the medkit he had brought.

"No, Soundwave. Not with that." Ratchet wondered if he should offer Soundwave a seat. If they had been in Iacon, it would have been intensely rude to leave the other mech standing while he spoke, but the faceless Decepticon was impossible to read. "Do you know anything about carriage?"

Soundwave's visor flickered. [ Y/[N] ]

"I understand," Ratchet said. "It's something of a niche area of medicine. Before the War, most Cybertronians were manufactured or Forged. Only a little over one percent of the population was carried."

Ratchet's comm alerted him as Soundwave refined a datastream and sent it. It contained articles on carriage, some written by Ratchet himself. One of them, buried among hundreds, had been authored by Pharma, and even the flash of designation-glyphs made Ratchet's spark twist. _Is the sparkling healthy?_

"Yes, Soundwave. Lord Megatron's sparkling is perfectly healthy." The addition of the word 'Lord' to Megatron's name tasted sour in Ratchet's mouth. He tried not to think about it. It had to be done. "It wasn't damaged in the fight."

Soundwave's visor went dark, and he waited noiselessly.

"There's another step to carriage that Lord Megatron and I haven't discussed," Ratchet said, "but it's necessary during the final phase."

Data cascaded across Soundwave's visor so quickly that Ratchet couldn't follow it, and even watching the feed threatened him with a processor ache. Soundwave was, if Ratchet had to guess, filtering through articles on carriage at a speed that would have boggled the mathematicians in Iacon. Four seconds later, the spymaster's visor tilted back towards Ratchet and Soundwave tapped the center of his chestplates, over the seam of his spark chamber.

"Yes," Ratchet confirmed. "A sparkmerge. It moves new sparks from the chamber down into the protoform pods. Or in my case, _the_ new spark."

An image of Megatron flashed up on Soundwave's visor. He looked heroic and powerful, and Ratchet was sure it was from a professionally done propaganda shot.

"The issue isn't Lord Megatron," Ratchet said, only half-lying. "It's the Dark Energon inside his spark chamber."

Soundwave's visor flashed, and sound crackled out from somewhere within his frame. Starscream's voice, full of the Seeker's characteristic arrogance and superficial charm. ' _Maybe you should take a break, my Lord. I worry that to much contact with the Dark Energon might allow its properties to... adversely affect you._ '

"That's not--" Ratchet had been prepared to correct the spymaster, but it seemed unnecessary. "Actually, Soundwave, that's exactly it."

Soundwave played another sample. Starscream again, this time his tone was pitched with agitation, bordering on panic. ' _Wait, Lord Megatron! No! Not your spark chamber! You do not know what it will do!_ '

Ratchet grimaced, then nodded. For once, Megatron should probably have listened to his Second.

"A sparkmerge with Megatron will almost certainly kill me, and it _will_ kill the sparkling." Ratchet waited for an acknowledgement from Soundwave, but none came, and he continued. "What effect it might have on Megatron, I don't know, but as a physician, I can't recommend it. Not under any circumstances. If the Dark Energon is somehow drawn out of his chamber during a merge, the results could be devastating to his health."

Soundwave somehow went stiller than usual, his visor dark. He wasn't processing data, because there _was_ no data to process. Not on this subject. This was an unprecedented situation, and Ratchet held his ventilations as he watched the spymaster, waiting.

Finally, Soundwave's visor flashed and he sent a datastream. Decepticon personnel files, millions of them. Ratchet couldn't see inside them, he had no clearance, so all he was getting was names. _If not Megatron, then who?_

 _Another Autobot_ , Ratchet thought, trying to ignore the datastream. Even considering his options was unpleasant. _Optimus. Pharma. Wheeljack. Perhaps Knock Out, if a Decepticon was truly the only option._

"You," Ratchet said, glancing up Soundwave. It was the only solution Megatron might accept that Ratchet could live with. The carriage was going to force him to give up his spark to someone, but the thought of twining himself into Tarn or Shockwave made his plating crawl. Giving either one of them any claim, no matter how tenuous, over his sparkling was unacceptable.

The suggestion must have shocked Soundwave, because he took a step backwards, as though Ratchet had touched him with something red-hot. In fact, it must have been truly unprecedented, because for the first time, Ratchet felt the slightest brush of the faceless mech's fields. Friendly, and perhaps, just a little bit flattered.

It was the best answer he could have hoped for.

*** *** ***

When Soundwave left, Ratchet went to the section of wall that folded out into the console and examined it. The stone surface looked smooth, but now that he knew it was there, he could just barely pick out the transformation seams. A precisely directed sensor sweep revealed the wall was hollow, but how it might opened, he didn't know. Mostly likely, it required something that he did not possess, which was a Decepticon energy signature.

For the moment, Ratchet left it alone. He didn't want to be caught trying to open the panel when Megatron returned, and with little else to do, he lay down on the couch and used his medical protocols to induce recharge. Now that he couldn't rely on Knock Out for fuel, he needed to conserve his energy.

He slept fitfully, dreaming of nothing, and when Megatron's hand touched his leg and woke him, Ratchet's chronometers told him it had been nearly six hours.

Exhaustion was still gnawing at him, and he felt like he could have slept for days.

"Megatron," Ratchet said, acidly. "Did you have a good day at work?"

Megatron's smile was dangerous. "Are you a house conjunx now, dear Ratchet?"

"In addition to keeping me as your berth pet, you've got me locked in your apartments. So I'm having trouble imagining what else you'd want me to be." Ratchet tilted his chin up and locked optics with the Warlord. "Now, how was your day?"

"Frustrating." Megatron glanced towards the berthroom and Ratchet got the message.

"I'm overcome with sympathy," Ratchet said. His frame felt stiff as he rose from the couch and headed for the berthroom. His energy levels were yellow, and he hoped that Megatron would finish with him quickly tonight. The thought of begging his tormentor for fuel was distasteful, but he would have to do it if tonight's assault was prolonged.

Ratchet climbed onto the berth, got onto his hands and knees and triggered his valve panel open. There was no need for the override at this point, his frame began a lubrication cycle whenever it felt the first threatening touch of Megatron's fields. To what were equal parts the medic's dismay and relief, Ratchet was already slick and ready for his captor's spike.

"On your back, medic," Megatron ordered as he crossed the threshold and came to the edge of the berth. "I want you to look up at me while I take you. I don't want you to forget who the sire of your sparkling is."

"That outcome," said Ratchet, turning himself over to lay on his back, keeping his legs spread, "is highly unlikely, Megatron."

One of Megatron's hands came down to caress his midsection and Ratchet tensed. It was impossible not to feel the strength and violence behind that clawed hand, and how the simplest of motions could tear him wide open. It took a great deal of willpower to keep his optics on Megatron, and the only way Ratchet could do it was by focusing on the Warlord's shoulder.

"It's a shame you won't show," Megatron said, and Ratchet heard the click of the Decepticon's spike panel and felt the heat spilling off Megatron's array. With some disgust, he realized he was used to it. "I want everyone to know who you belong to."

 _I don't belong to anyone_ , Ratchet thought as he glowered up at Megatron. _Least of all you._

"Nothing to say?" Megatron asked, leering down at him. "Come, dear Ratchet, don't lose your penchant for banter now."

"I--" Ratchet began, but was cut off by a tremor that started in his midsection, under Megatron's hand. The sensation wasn't painful so much as it was alien, and it felt like power was crawling through his lines, traveling between the point of contact with Megatron and Ratchet's spark chamber. Out of reflex, he started an internal medical scan.

Megatron must have felt it too, because Ratchet felt the hydraulics in the Warlord's arm tense and for the first time his captor's fields hovered around a state that _almost_ approached concern.

"Did my sparkling just move?" Megatron asked, raising an optic ridge.

"Suddenly it's _your_ sparkling?" Ratchet snapped, scanning the self-diagnostic to confirm that Megatron's suggestion was indeed the case. The situation was absurd, not at all how he had pictured the way it might have been when he felt his sparkling's first flash. He wished he could have been laying on a berth with Pharma, teasing him about their ridiculous pile of mesh blankets, or working on some important project with Optimus, who would have been so proud and happy that Ratchet would have thought the Lord Prime was the sire.

Instead, he was a captive with his legs spread and valve bared for the pleasure of a monster who was the literal spawn of Unicron. Ratchet tried to focus on something else, like the tiny, flickering energy fields he could now feel inside his frame, or the irregular but now-present pulse of a second spark.

"Yes," Ratchet confirmed, at last. "It did."

Megatron's hands caressed him in a way that made Ratchet shudder with revulsion. He almost wished the Warlord would mistreat him, that would be easier to bear.

What would Optimus say if he saw Ratchet moving under Megatron's hands or writhing beneath the weight of the Decepticon's frame? After a year without his Prime, Ratchet was starting to have trouble recalling Optimus' expressions and his voice, and that was the worst part.

Megatron purred, and a few drops of transfluid spilled from his spike to spatter on Ratchet's abdominal plating. The air was cool enough that Ratchet could see curls of steam rising from them. "Good, dear Ratchet. Very good. Your master is pleased."

"Unless it was good enough to merit being allowed to leave your apartments or warrant being _fed_ , I don't care." Ratchet turned his head to one side. "Just get on with it, Megatron. I want to go back into recharge."

"As you wish." Megatron drew back, filling him with a sharp thrust and Ratchet tangled his hands into the mesh blankets, gritting his teeth against the sensation. It wasn't painful, and Megatron drew back a few times, changing his angle until he could strike against Ratchet's ceiling node at the apex of each thrust.

It was impossible to pretend Megatron was someone else, so Ratchet made a half-sparked roll of his hips into each thrust, grinding down against Megatron's heavy spike. He knew an overload would come sooner or later, and he just wanted it over with. At least his hands were free, and before Megatron could grab them and pin them, Ratchet brought them up to stroke the Warlord's chest, one on each side of Megatron's Decepticon brand. There was a pleased rumble from deep within his captor's frame, one that Ratchet felt in his shoulder struts.

The ridge at the base of Megatron's spike ground up against Ratchet's anterior node and made the medic cry out. Ratchet's hands fumbled over Megatron's chest, gripping at his armor. Not for the first time, he wondered if Megatron had been modded. Interfacing mods seemed ostentatious and out of character for the Warlord, but a gladiator's owners would sometimes let fans buy them for a night or a party. Perhaps Megatron's former owner had insisted on them, it would have increased the amount of shanix he brought in.

As Megatron rutted between his legs, Ratchet wondered if it might be possible to charm or seduce his captor into returning his privileges. He was no stranger to interfacing; during medical school he'd had more than his share of lovers, then there had been Pharma, and after the War began, his fellow Autobots, most notably, Optimus. And there was no denying that at times, Megatron's attitude seemed to hover somewhere around fondness or amusement for his captive, though he always slid back into domination and violence.

Ratchet had no idea how he might go about it, and he gritted his teeth as he felt the mounting pressure of an overload. One of Megatron's hands grabbed at his leg and forced him open a bit wider, making him cry out. The change in the angle of their frames made the press of Megatron's blunt spike to his ceiling node almost impossible to bear and even though his hands were free, Ratchet was still pinned, helpless.

Megatron leaned down, grazing his sharpened dental chips along Ratchet's audial and making the Autobot gasp under his weight. "Are you close?"

"Damn you!" Ratchet pressed his hands into Megatron's chest, to keep them from shaking. "Just finish already!"

No, Ratchet was probably not going to be able to charm the Emperor, and much to his dismay, Megatron didn't acknowledge the plea. He thrust into Ratchet's valve with deep, hard strokes, engines revving each time he pulled a cry from the medic's vocalizer. One of the strokes sent Ratchet into overload, and made the captive medic sob as the relief and release crawled through his frame.

Megatron's overload came moments later, and Ratchet braced himself for the ache of being empty when the Warlord pulled free. The first searing pulses of transfluid hit Ratchet's ceiling node and made him whimper in protest, and then Megatron's hips jerked and Ratchet's valve was trying to cycle down onto nothing. Steaming transfluid spattered over Ratchet's bared array, his hips, and his midsection.

"If you aren't going to feed me," Ratchet snapped, "you could at least have the decency to overload inside me. The sparkling needs that."

Megatron chuckled darkly and patted his hip, and however gentle, the touch made Ratchet flinch. Not wanting to be exposed to the Warlord any longer, he snapped his valve panel shut and turned on his side. There was a creak as the berth shifted, and Megatron lay down next to him, pulling Ratchet back until the medic's back rested against his chestplates.

"Soundwave told me what you said," Megatron said, winding an arm around Ratchet and resting one hand over his midsection, covering the gestational tank. "Did you think you could get away with going over my head?"

Ratchet squirmed, but tried not to protest. "I thought it was the only possibility you would accept that I could live with."

"Soundwave is not a gentle creature. You are sparing yourself nothing."

"I never imagined he was." Ratchet tried to get comfortable, and ended up leaning back into Megatron. Perhaps seduction was outside his skillset, but maybe he could-- "Tell me."

He felt the curious rumble of the Warlord's engines. "Tell you what, medic?"

"Tell me why your day was so frustrating."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing a little bit of catch up with everyone who isn't Ratchet. Some extremely brief Heatwave/OC in the background.
> 
> In case you're wondering, [Hayley](http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Hayley) is Kade's girlfriend from the cartoon. No better time to pop the question than when the world's ending.

A blue mech slid into the seat next to Knock Out and looked him up and down. The towering mech, who was some sort of armored truck almost twice Knock Out's size, raised an optic ridge. "You look like a whore."

Knock Out scowled and turned his head to one side, determined not to let the other mech get a rise out of him, but the blue mech kept staring at him and he supposed the comment demanded a response. "I'm not a whore," he said, drawing his knees even tighter together. "Frag off."

"Guess not." The truck didn't budge an inch. "Sorry about that."

Tilting his helm to the side, Knock Out stole a glance at the mech next to him. Even sitting, the truck dwarfed him, and the blue mech looked thick and heavy. Strong, built for long drives and punishing work. He was pitted and scarred, and his protoflesh was red-orange. It was an exotic shade, but Knock Out thought it might be a company color. It wasn't unusual for manufactured mechs to have some notable physical trait, it made it more difficult for them to hide if they tried to flee from their owners.

Like Knock Out and the rest of the mechs in the transport, the truck was chained to the wall by one hand, with a heavy collar welded around his neck. Another chain looped through the collar, attaching him to the mechs on either side of him, one of whom was Knock Out. The atmosphere was dark and uncomfortable, rank with fear and anger, swamped by the buzz of overlapping energy fields.

"To be fair," Knock Out said, releasing a long ex-vent, "you took it better than my owner did."

The truck chuckled. "Is that why you're headed for the public auctions?"

Knock Out, not wanting his vocalizer to glitch, nodded. He didn't want to think about the inevitability of the auction. It wasn't that he feared being owned, he had been owned since the moment he had come online, and his earliest memories were of being led to his owner's berth. It was more that he worried who might buy him at a public sale. Mechs like Knock Out were normally traded privately among the high-castes and their friends. At an open sale, he might end up thrown to the gladiators in Kaon, or spend the rest of his life chained to a berth in a whorehouse. Or--

"He caught me reading," Knock Out explained. "I think he wanted to make an example of me."

"Frag me Primus." The blue mech grinned. "You can read? What were you reading?"

Knock Out nodded to him again. "Medical journals, but it's not like that matters now."

"Huh. You a doctor?"

"No." Knock Out wanted to wrap his arms around himself, but there wasn't enough give on the chain. "I'm... not anything."

"Fair enough. Is there something you want to be called?"

Knock Out rolled his optics. "I'm not going to 'face you, I hope you know that."

"Of course not. There's no room in here, we're both chained to the wall, and to be honest, I don't do so well with an audience." The blue mech's lipplates curved up into a smile. "Name's Breakdown, by the way."

"Knock Out," he said, refusing to allow himself to be either charmed or amused. The situation was to grim for that, and once they arrived at their destination, they would never see each other again. Knock Out couldn't imagine they would appeal to the same sort of buyer.

Breakdown used his frame to nudge the red racer. "Pretty name for a pretty mech."

"I meant what I said about interfacing," Knock Out snapped, crisply. "What do you want?"

Glancing sidelong down the length of the transport car, Breakdown gestured towards one of the guards with his head. "I get that you're not a whore or anything, but you think you could get the guard to come over here?"

"I could get that guard to sell me his sparklings," Knock Out said, forcing his tone to remain level. He hoped Breakdown couldn't tell how fake his veneer of calm was, or that he was terrified - not of the truck, but of the whole situation he'd found himself in. The press of clashing energy fields was suffocating, so at least no one could read those. "...but why?"

Breakdown leaned in closer to him, conspiratorial. "Because then I could snap his spinal strut, grab the key, and we could blow this joint."

The suggested seemed outrageous to Knock Out, who had barely been off his owner's estate, and even then what trips he had been allowed had usually just been to the estates of other high caste mechs. Freedom was a risky, even dangerous proposition. At least owned mechs had to be kept alive, fed, and maintained in something approaching working order. Where would they go? How would they get fuel? What if someone came after them? Who--

Knock Out stole another glance at Breakdown, who was leaning back against the wall as he waited for an answer, optics shuttered. The truck wasn't handsome by high caste standards. He was no fluttering, lovely Seeker or gaudily modded Senator, but there was a sort of stability and rough charm to him. There was a hierarchy even among the owned, Knock Out realized, and this was as close as he'd ever been to someone in the worker caste. The revelation made him feel awkward and young, naive.

"Where would we _go_?" Knock out asked. "After we escaped?"

"Don't matter." Breakdown didn't turn back to face him. "Anywhere. Everywhere. Put our tires on the road and just drive."

"That's a romantic notion."

"No it isn't. It won't be easy, but at least no one will own us."

"Have you ever... killed anyone before?"

"Yes."

Knock Out nodded. "Good."

One of Breakdown's optics opened by a fraction, and Knock Out saw the barest sliver of gold light from behind it. "Huh? Why's that 'good'?"

Knock Out shifted his weight in the seat and spread his legs, then whistled up the length of the transport to the guard, whose optics raked over the red racer with curiosity and then, understanding. "Because," he said, lowering his voice, "I wouldn't have wanted you to get started on my account."

*** *** ***

Every part of Knock Out's frame hurt, but nothing was so bad as his spark. The dream--

That wasn't true, it hadn't even been a dream, but a memory replay, a symptom of a medically induced recharge cycle.

Knock Out was not the bravest member of the Decepticon Cause, but he had no fear of going into automatic shutdown in Tarn's lavish berth. After all, Megatron's beloved executioner would _never_ murder anyone in their sleep. There was no sport in that.

Reaching up, he touched his faceplate. There was still energon caked on it, but the leaks had stopped thanks to a handful of minor repairs and some hurried, slapdash welds. Surviving Megatron's wrath only to leak out a few hours later would have been mortifying (and all too common when it came to low-ranking Decepticons). Once Tarn allowed it, he would have to remove the whole thing and replace it. His valve was sore, a reminder of the night before, he could still feel the ache from being spread by that awful knot and the lingering heat of Tarn's overload inside him. As a gift to his favorite, Megatron had taken his medic before sending Knock Out along to Tarn, so the racer was mildly grateful that he hadn't been torn.

Worst of all was the hole in his spark where Breakdown had been. In his pettiest, ugliest moments, Knock Out was secretly pleased with Earth's grisly fate. It had served Unicron's repulsive little by-blows right for defiling his conjunx. Guilt always hit him hardest right after those moments, when he thought of Bumblebee's face as the containers snapped apart, or when he recalled the news and social media broadcasts Soundwave had monitored as the humans who survived the initial blast from the Omega Lock had struggled to cling to life.

Put our tires on the road and just drive.

 _Well, Breakdown_ , Knock Out thought, glancing over at Tarn's dark, still form and wondering how he'd ended up here, _it was a lovely idea, and it worked out for a while, but now there's well and truly nowhere to go._

Knock Out wanted to rise, clean himself off and clean himself out, then go to the Tyranny's makeshift medbay and fix up his faceplate. Maybe, while he was at it, he could self-administer some nanite gel, there was a container in his kit. Unfortunately, permission from Tarn was what being repaired hinged on, and since he was in no immediate danger of off-lining, Knock Out doubted it would be given. Megatron's punishments were not something that one shirked lightly, and Knock Out knew from experience that a night or two in Tarn's berth wouldn't earn him any favors.

He hoped Ratchet was alright, and while anger always simmered back up to the surface, Knock Out wondered if there might be some way to plead the Autobot's case. Megatron wasn't feeding Ratchet enough, Knock Out was already certain of that, but sending the Emperor a list of supplements and an organized fueling schedule for carriers while he was already enraged would have been signing his own death warrant.

Instead, Knock Out decided to try his luck elsewhere, and while he waited for Tarn to rise, he organized his lists and sent them on a long-range channel to Soundwave. To his suprise, a reply was returned immediately, as though Soundwave had been hovering over a comm station, waiting for Knock Out's call.

Soundwave's disquieting and occasionally inappropriate silence extended into text, so the reply was interwoven and highly refined datastreams, and Knock Out picked them apart as quickly as he could. In the last few hundred thousand years, he'd gotten used to deciphering Soundwave's communications and body language. _I will take care of it. Attend to Tarn. Return quickly._

Knock Out blinked, from Soundwave, that was practically an essay. He wasn't entirely sure how to reply, and went with, [Thank you?]

There was no response from the spymaster, and the channel went dead.

While he waited, Knock Out wondered what his life might have been like if things were different. If his spark hadn't flown so high, and if his pod hadn't calcified so far from the Well of All Sparks, and if the poachers had never found him. It was a silly little fantasy, but Knock Out indulged in it anyways.

Maybe he would have been allowed to attend school. Maybe Ratchet would have seen him in a primary education facility and taken a liking to him, brought him home, been his caretaker. It would have been just to practice for his _real_ offspring, but--

But _what_?

It wouldn't have done him a scrap of good. The Autobots had lost the war, even and if that ridiculous fantasy had happened, Knock Out would be in exactly the same position he was in now, only without the transparent veil of protection that being a loyal Decepticon afforded him.

...and he would have never met Breakdown, so it was a stupid sparkling's fantasy anyways.

Next to him, Knock Out sensed Tarn's black, terrifying energy fields as the other mech stirred, and it took a great deal of willpower not to pull back from him. He reached up, running his fingers along the tank's treads, focusing on the elaborate patterns there as he started a lubrication cycle.

"You're lovely," Tarn murmured, and Knock Out felt like the words were going to push him into the berth.

When Tarn's hands came up to quest over his frame, Knock Out groaned inwardly. With some effort, he propped himself up, and then got to his knees, though even that simple movement sent jagged lines of pain shooting around in his helm, courtesy of his shattered faceplate. One of Tarn's hands slid up the plating over his spinal strut and pushed him forward, until he was on his hands and knees.

There was no point in delaying, and Knock Out triggered his panel open, to present the slit of his valve and its plush folds to Tarn. He wanted to rest his forehead on the berth, but with his faceplate in the state it was, that wouldn't help. This was going to be painful no matter how gentle Tarn was.

Knock Out's engines made a soft noise as the DJD leader pressed his thumbs into the folds of the medic’s valve, parting them slightly. Trickles of lubricant and transfluid dripped from him, and Knock Out heard their soft impacts on the blankets. The sight must have pleased Tarn, because his engines revved, and Knock Out heard him purring.

"I want you again," Tarn said, his voice low enough that it was a soft caress, and Knock Out felt a blunt finger slide inside him. "There's time."

"I don't want to keep you from your duties," Knock Out said, as though the morning's activities hadn't already been decided on, unilaterally.

A second finger joined the first in Knock Out's valve, and Tarn scissored them apart, stretching him. He was probably making a mess of his hands, though there was no indication that he cared. The tank's other hand slid beneath the kneeling medic, massaging Knock Out's anterior node and making his hips jerk.

"Don't worry," Tarn purred. "You won't."

All Knock Out could do was spread his legs a bit wider and resign himself to it. Unlike Megatron, Tarn was at least willing to prepare him, and thank Primus he was. Knock Out would never have been able to take his spike without it. A moment later, the fingers slid free and Knock Out felt the tapered head of Tarn's spike as it pressed between his valve folds. The tank was hot with arousal, but not searingly so, the way Megatron was. The first set of piercings ignited a sensor cluster and Knock Out gasped, digging his claws into the blankets.

"It's a shame you don't have a gestational tank," Tarn said as he penetrated Knock Out slowly, easing the impressive length of his spike inside. Knock Out's calipers protested around the length as it filled him, unable to cycle down completely. The executioner hovered on the edge of being too big. Tarn didn't stop until he was threatening Knock Out with the thick bulb of the knot, pressing the top half almost inside. "You would produce beautiful litters."

 _Of course I would, but they wouldn't be yours_. Knock Out thought, but kept it to himself as he pressed his hips back against Tarn and rolled them, feigning eagerness and interest. It wasn't exactly difficult, he had done it at parties a thousand times. "I want one, but the technology is something of a lost art."

"Lord Megatron already promised me the Autobot, after he starts producing proper litters." Tarn's hands settled on the racer's hips and he pulled away, until he was almost out, then thrust back in, more quickly this time, igniting multiple rings of sensors at once and making Knock Out shudder. Immediately, Knock Out regretted it, the sudden movement gave him a headache. "...but I admit, the thought of you carrying my sparklings is enticing."

"I'm not a warframe," Knock Out said, as a weak protest, and he wasn't sure what was worse, the pain from his faceplate or the blooms of arousal when Tarn's spike struck his ceiling node. He sent a command to his calipers and made them flutter, then clutch, and he heard Tarn groan. It was an old buymech trick, but no one ever seemed to grow tried of it, and if Tarn overloaded without knotting him, it would be a good enough start to the day. "And I'd hardly be the one most in favor even _if_ Lord Megatron had spare tanks to give away."

"A profound disappointment, I can assure--" Tarn paused mid-thrust, and Knock Out felt the tank's weight and presence looming over him, powerful hands resting on his hips. A quick glance back revealed that the DJD leader was touching his audial.

 _Rude_ , Knock Out thought, rolling his optics.

"I was wrong," Tarn said. "I don’t have time. They found something, and they need me on the bridge."

To Knock Out's complete dismay, it must not have been an emergency, because Tarn didn't disengage. Instead, he angled his hips and hilted himself back into the racer's valve, right up the swell of the knot, forcing Knock Out's calipers open until they were straining and the racer was crying out, dipping back and forth between pleasure and pain.

"Tarn--" Knock Out swore and gritted his dental chips as Tarn's hand came down in the center of his back and a good portion of the tank's weight was transferred onto him. His frame creaked and protested, but he was held motionless as Tarn ground down against him and slid the knot inside. The sensation was half thrilling and half terrifying. He felt exquisitely full while at the same time, afraid that Tarn's next movement would tear him in two.

The tank's engines revved noisily, and the powerful vibration carried through his entire frame as he overloaded. Hot, silvery transfluid pumped into Knock Out's valve, filling every space between ridges and treads until there was nowhere else for it to go. He was already full, but the pulses that were washing his ceiling node and the pressure built until they sent Knock Out into a brief, flitting overload. Tarn's hand didn't move from his back, holding him down so he couldn't hurt himself.

For a while, they stayed like that, and all Knock Out could hear was the roar of their cooling fans and clicking of their overheated frames in the empty room. Finally, he felt the knot start to subside, and Tarn moved away, easing himself out. Knock Out supposed he should be grateful for that. In the past, Tarn had sometimes kept him tied for hours, and once, overnight. Even the memory made Knock Out shudder, and the more he thought back on it, the more he realized he couldn't leave Ratchet in Tarn's clutches.

...but what exactly he could do to prevent it, he wasn't sure.

*** *** ***

"I've got something to ask you," Kade said as Heatwave lowered himself into the secondary piloting throne. The firefighter glanced over his shoulder towards the hold, as though expecting Wheeljack to return. When the Wrecker didn't materialize, Kade pressed on. "Are _you_ a Deception?"

"No," Heatwave said.

"Did you used to be? Like, maybe, a long time ago?" Kade sat, his legs hanging off the armrest. "Before you met us?"

"No," Heatwave said, again, but this time, without the same reassurance. It wasn't exactly a lie, and it wasn't as if he'd ever worn a purple badge. There were millions, if not billions of manufactured mechs who had been sympathizers to the Cause before everything had gone off the rails.

"Huh." Kade made a face. "You are Starscream have the same mark."

It was a stupid enough statement that it made Heatwave look down at this Autobrand to check. To late, he realized Kade was screwing around again, and he half expected his partner to laugh and joke that he had 'made him look'. Kade didn't, he just kept watching curiously, and Heatwave raised an optic ridge. "No we don't."

"Not that one." Kade pointed. "The one on your hand. I used to think you had it because you were the leader or something, but Optimus doesn't have one and Starscream does, and Screamy's leader of jack shit. I _do_ pay attention, you know, sometimes."

Heatwave glanced down at the oath-glyph on his second-last finger. Optimus had been inescapably clear that there were certain aspects of Cybertronian physiology that humans weren't to become privy to, but he had never ordered Heatwave to hide or scrub off the glyph. Not that there had been any point in bringing it up, or that anyone had ever asked. His team knew, and none of the humans had ever asked before. He supposed though, that Kade had never had anything to compare it to. Heatwave's whole team all had etchings. Blades' flying lines and Boulder's cadre marks from the engineering fraternities at the Iacon Academy. Even Chase had his old service studs - which were entirely within department protocol, of course.

"It's an oath-glyph," Heatwave said, curtly. "It's not the same as a Brand. Anyone can get Joined."

"Joined?" Kade squinted. "What does that mean?"

Heatwave pointed at the plain gold band on Kade's own second-last finger.

"What the hell?" Kade laughed, then grinned. "You're married too? What? Is there a girl firetruck around somewhere? Can I meet her? You should have invited her to my wedding, she could have been Hayley's--"

"I was." Heatwave cut him off. "He's dead."

"Oh," Kade said, instantly subdued. "Shit. Sorry, bro. Did he die in the war?"

"No. It happened a bit before the war broke out."

"Happened? What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Kade thrust about for something else to say. "So, Starscream has a husband too?"

"No, he's got two." Heatwave couldn't help but laugh a little. "I don't know if you can tell, but he's considered extremely attractive by Cybertronian standards."

Kade snorted. "What? Seriously? I feel like that red dude we saw in the storage room would give him a run for his money."

Heatwave rolled his optics. "Unicron's broadside, you don't even--"

"Is that how it works?" Kade cut him off, his expression was animated now, as though their previous conversation had never happened. "If you're really hot, you can have two husbands? Don't give me that look! I'm trying to be multicultural here."

Heatwave snorted. "Only if you're a jet."

"Hey," said Kade, "so, uh, are all Cybertronians dudes?"

Heatwave's engines ground out a long, exasperated noise, but he reminded himself that the only Cybertronians Kade had ever seen had been male. Heatwave and his team, Optimus and Ratchet, Starscream and the Vehicon Corps. "No, but I see where you're going with this. Kade, for most Cybertronians, gender isn't a factor in romantic relationships."

Kade eyed him. "For _most_? Does that mean you're one of the outliers?"

Heatwave glanced back at him. "Yes, and 'outlier' is a good word. It's punching way above your normal vocabulary weight class."

"Alright, bro." Kade seemed to have gotten what he wanted out of the conversation and he nodded authoritatively. "I got your back. I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled for any sexy firetrucks we see. Unless you're still grieving?"

"I am!" Heatwave glared down at his human partner, his engines growling louder than he had intended.

"Hey!" Kade leaned over and punched his arm. "Then this is the perfect way to move on!"

Heatwave muttered something to himself and for a time, they flew in silence. It didn't last. With Kade, it never did.

"What's the Decepticon's problem anyways? Why do they have such a bug up their collective asses about humanity? What did we ever do to them?"

Heatwave sighed. "That's a loaded question."

Kade shrugged. "We've got nothing but time."

There was so much to tell that Heatwave wondered where to even begin, to say nothing of how much Kade would tolerate, no matter how curious his partner claimed to be. The divide between the Forged and manufactured? The protests and rallies? The caste-system? The rise of Megatron and his followers? The massacre of the Senate? The anti-Neutral pogroms?

"Cybertron," Heatwave began, "was... actually a lot like America, before the war."

"So it was the greatest planet in the galaxy?"

"No," said Heatwave, "but we were taught that it was. In reality, we had a lot of the same same problems that humans did, oppression, poverty, slavery, racism--"

Kade frowned. "I thought all Cybertronians were the same race, and this Autobot/Decepticon thing was like, political?"

"It is," Heatwave snapped, "but all humans are the same race and that didn't stop you from discriminating against each other for things like skin color or religion. Do you want to hear the story or not?"

*** *** ***

Ultra Magnus glared down at her with a severity that made Arcee feel as though his gaze had tangible weight. He cleared his vocalizer. "Let the record state that I oppose this course of action, as it will eventually lead to your destruction or capture."

"Duly noted, sir." Arcee tilted her chin up to lock optics with him. "But I can't leave this planet without Bumblebee."

"You are under _my_ command, and--"

"With all due respect, Ultra Magnus, I'm under the _Prime's_ command." Arcee's tone was crisp, she couldn't help it. "So when there's a new Prime, _he's_ welcome to come here and command me. Until then, I need to take care of my team. Will that be all?"

Ultra Magnus sighed. "For all we know, he could have been taken off-world already. You can't do him any good here."

"There were a lot of us who did just fine when the Ark and the evacuation fleets left us behind on Cybertron--"

"That is not a fair comparison," Magnus said, his tone stern, "and I resent the implication that--"

"I'm stayin' too," Jazz's voice, rich and sharp at the same time, cut into the conversation like a knife. "Optimus would have wanted us to look out for Bee."

Magnus turned to face him. "Now is a time when the Autobots need unity more than ever. We can't have agents running around at large, pursing their own agendas."

"Rescuing Bee ain't an 'agenda'." Jazz shrugged, his visor glinting. "Court martial me."

"Don't think I won't."

Arcee cringed inwardly, pulling her fields in to nil. The Fleet didn't need her, but Jazz was the third in command of the combined Autobot forces, as well as the head of Special Operations. Being alone on a hostile, Decepticon-controlled world with no support was daunting enough, but she didn't want to have keep looking over her shoulder to make sure Jazz was alright. She was smaller than him, and she needed less energon. It let her travel longer and further, and reach places that other Cybertronians couldn't.

To say nothing of her track record with partners so far.

It was just that after everything, the prospect of being alone was to much to take.

"'Cee," said Jazz. "You ready to go?"

Instead of telling him to stay with Ultra Magnus, she nodded.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hesitantly, with what I have drafted out, Separation is going to be 18 chapters, and I'm thinking there's going to be a sequel that deals with the fallout/rebuilding.
> 
> Remember back in Chapter 1 when Ratchet said he /knew/ Pharma wasn't waiting for him? Well now we know why!

"You think I should get Joined?" Megatron asked, incredulous. “To one of the Neutrals?”

"I think you should keep it in mind as a possibility," Ratchet said. "No one rules alone. Even the Primes had the Senate and the Council."

Across from him, Megatron snorted and took a sip from his cube of energon. Ratchet had his own cube, much smaller, but he didn't dare complain, and he gripped it as though the Warlord might snatch it away at any moment. He was sitting opposite the Decepticon leader, in the chair that Tarn had occupied when he had been here. The peace between them, as always, seemed delicate.

Ratchet continued, Megatron had been willing enough to listen last night, after all. "Even if you have no intention of going through with it--"

"I don't."

Ratchet glared up at him and scowled. "Even if you have no intention of going through with it, you should do your best to make it seem as though you're available."

The discussion had taken up most of the night and continued into the morning, with Megatron recounting his grievances with the Neutral factions, of which there were many (both factions and grievances, as it turned out).

Some of the Neutrals seemed to care little for either politics or religion, and pleased that the war was seemingly over, they had come to Cybertron to swear allegiance to the new Emperor. Others, most notably Primal worshipers, were horrified over the murder of the Last Prime and the apparent loss of the Matrix of Leadership. They were giving the Decepticons and their leader grief in any way they could, and Ratchet hoped they might offer aid to any Autobots who remained at large, even if the Neutrals had previously been unwilling to fight. And since Megatron and his followers had spent millions of years victimizing the galaxy, there was no shortage of groups with no religious connections to the Primes who still balked at the thought of dealing with him.

Finally, there were those who were on the fence. Factions who were considering aligning with the Decepticons but were wary of Megatron's warmongering and mercurial anger. The Warlord was, at times, his own worst public relations enemy. He couldn't run an Empire like he ran a warship, a rebellion, or an army, and it remained to be seen if, having won the war, Megatron could win the peace.

This last group of Neutrals included Roadway, a merchant and trader who styled himself a prince, and who had managed to hold onto his vast wealth despite the fall of the planet (there was something to be said, Ratchet thought, for a keen sense of self-preservation and a large private army). Roadway controlled a lucrative star system close to several trade ports and intriguingly, he claimed to have a vast cache of manufactured sparks, looted from the old cathedral-manufactoriums before Cybertron went dark. Ratchet had trouble believing that part, but if it were true, Roadway would be able to use it to command the allegiance of _any_ Cybertronian faction.

He needed to be, in Megatron's opinion 'dealt with', but the Decepticons were spread thin and they were all required to hold the planet. How much of that was Megatron's paranoia, Ratchet wasn't sure. He would have been wary about leaving Cybertron unguarded as well.

"It's amusing to me that after all this time, you imagine that I would share power." Megatron was reclining opposite Ratchet, sipping from his own, larger cube. Even at ease, he hardly seemed relaxed, his frame was coiled and taut, as though the Warlord expected an attack at any moment.

"I didn't think that for a moment, Megatron." Ratchet snorted to himself. "But you should make Roadway think it's a _possibility_. Just enough to provoke his rivals, or convince him that should allow you or one of your agents to tour his holdings on... I'm sorry, where did you say he was based?"

Megatron hadn't said anything about it, and while Ratchet lacked the interrogation skills of say, Jazz, he was used to dealing with Senators and nobles. Maybe he could learn more, it was always worth a shot. He had spent countless hours advising Optimus, and before that, dealing with nobles and Senators. He knew something of politics, though he was not a politician himself.

"Alum," said Megatron, with a brief glance at Ratchet's midsection. "I'm surprised you'd suggest this."

"Why?" Ratchet asked, noting that Alum was still free of Decepticon control. It wasn't even that far away, though it wasn't as if he had a shuttle. "You'd hardly need a formal conjunx ritus to acknowledge our sparkling, or to grant me some official position. The Primal lines were virtually all carried by members of the concubinage, and they were all owned mechs."

Megatron chuckled. "You hardly look like a Primal concubine, dear Ratchet."

"I'll admit there was a 'type'," Ratchet said. "Sentinel and Zeta both preferred small frames, multiple door wings, lots of glass."

Bumblebee and Smokescreen would have been much more to their liking, and Ratchet was grateful the Elder Primes hadn't lived long enough to set optics on either of them.

"He was beautiful," Megatron said, apropos of nothing. "The moment I laid optics on him, I knew I wanted him. I killed ten mechs to have him."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge at that. "Tarn's carrier?"

Megatron nodded.

"Does Tarn," Ratchet paused, "know his carrier's name? Did you ever tell him where he came from? Who he is? He's a viable candidate for the Matrix transfer, you know. Legally speaking, he should be considered."

"No," said Megatron, his tone dangerous. "And think long and hard about anything _you_ say to him, Autobot. You don't need a vocalizer or a commlink to open your legs."

"Megatron." Ratchet rolled his optics. "I would die, happily, before I let Tarn get anywhere _near_ the Matrix."

"Good to know you have your priorities straight."

"Did his carrier name him?"

"No," said Megatron. "He was already grey when I cut Tarn's pod from his frame."

Ratchet cringed. Born from the dead. Tarn's reputation as the spawn of Mortilus wasn't as far off, religiously speaking, as his enemies might have hoped. Had he been officially acknowledged, the priests would have done Primus' work and incinerated his pod. It was a practice Ratchet had never agreed with (or considered medically ethical), and more than once, he had spirited a pod away to safety to fulfill a carrier's desperate, final pleas. Usually to his old friend Rung, another doctor, and one whose list of grievances with the priests made Megatron's rants and complaints about the Neutrals look positively reasonable.

It wasn't as if his own situation was similar, as harrowing as captivity was, he was unlikely to die as a result of the carriage. It was only one pod, and Ratchet's health was still relatively stable, but the thought of the poor mech hemorrhaging out as his frame ate itself was horrifying. How had Megatron hidden Tarn from the high-caste mechs who owned the arenas? Who had raised him? Did he have a real name? Something that Megatron had once called him in his youth? Even Tarn hadn't been born an executioner, had he learned that in the pits below the world? Or perhaps at Megatron's knee--

"Did Optimus ever indulge?" Megatron asked, interrupting his prisoner's grim thoughts.

"In the concubinage?!" Ratchet was taken aback, and he barked out a sharp laugh, a little shocked there was still laughter anywhere in his spark. "Megatron, are you joking? He was horrified at the very idea. He wouldn't even consummate the transfer of the Matrix. It was a scandal among the highest orders."

"He couldn't have been as disgusted as you believe," Megatron snapped, "he hardly did anything to discourage the masses from worshipping him."

"Do you really think that you can justify _murdering_ him by trying to paint him with Sentinel and Zeta's colors?" Ratchet tried not to get angry, getting angry with Megatron wouldn't help anyone, least of all him. But try as he might, couldn't quite bring himself hold his vocalizer. "That will never work on me, Megatron. So the question remains, who are you trying to convince? Yourself?"

Megatron's gaze felt heavy as he stared Ratchet down. "We were having a good morning, medic."

"No one who wakes up in your berth has ever had a good morning." Ratchet steadied himself in the chair. He'd gone too far again, and he watched Megatron, waiting for the Warlord to rise and bracing himself for a blow or for the shock to his struts from being thrown to the floor.

It didn't happen. Just as Megatron opened his mouth to respond, the doors hissed open and Soundwave came in, followed by two of the quelled, weaponless Vehicons.

One of the Vehicons carried a tray with cubes of energon on it, and the other carried an identical tray with vials and containers of supplements. It was surreal, but Ratchet supposed when you were all but omniscient, it wasn't hard to have perfect timing.

Megatron glowered at them. "Soundwave? What in the Pit is this?"

Soundwave paused, and Ratchet saw his visor flash. He got nothing from it, so the datastream, whatever it was, must have been shared only between the two Decepticons.

"That's preposterous!" Megatron shouted and Ratchet flinched, but Soundwave was utterly unmoved. He was, if Ratchet had to guess, used to dealing with Megatron at this point. The Vehicons didn't move, they could have been statues, their helms pointed downwards. "He's not _starving_!" A pause. "Knock Out isn't even a doctor!"

Something scrolled over Soundwave's visor, and this time Ratchet recognized it immediately, the modified medical exams he had written for Knock Out to take.

"Ratchet!? Ratchet has no authority to appoint doctors--"

There was another flash, and Soundwave brought up something new. Ratchet's _own_ medical exams (documented as being in the highest possible percentile - only Pharma had ever come close), and then his original contracts of service to the Academy and the Palace. Lumina Prime's seal was visible in the bottom corner of the latter, if only just barely.

It was an impressive pull, even for the Decepticon spymaster. Those documents were nearly three times Soundwave's age and even Ratchet himself hadn't had copies.

"This isn't--!" Megatron cut himself off, and his gaze boiled as it careened over to Ratchet, who summoned all of his remaining willpower not to shrink black or flinch. Megatron turned back to Soundwave. "Soundwave, in private, if you would."

Megatron stalked past him, his footfalls shaking the floor, and his powerful engines growling and revving, the image of barely restrained violence. Soundwave followed, narrow and dark, silent and with a great economy of motion, as though he were gliding on air. They were opposites, fire and ice, and Ratchet had never realized exactly how diametric they were. Megatron stopped at the door to his room and turned, snapping his fingers at the Vehicons and then pointing at the table in front of Ratchet. Then he passed though with Soundwave, and the door hissed closed.

Hurriedly, the Vehicons set the trays down and then all but fled the Emperor's apartments. As Ratchet looked over the offerings, already resolved to eat anything that wouldn't be harmful, he hardly blamed them.

Despite some concerns, the worst complaint Ratchet could have made about Knock Out's fueling schedule was that the younger medic was overeager. There was no need for iron supplements at this stage in the carriage (though they were totally benign), and Ratchet wouldn't have wasted his time prescribing liquid aluminum (which was supposed to make the sparkling's plating shimmer and glow, something that he found idiotic and superfluous), but none of it was dangerous, and Ratchet reminded himself that doctors were the worst patients.

He fully intended to drink it all, and he would have done it even if he hadn't been hungry, just to spite Megatron.

As he opened the first cube and drank, Ratchet heard Megatron yelling. The Emperor's berthroom wasn't soundproofed, though he was only getting half of the conversation, because while Soundwave never spoke, Ratchet had discovered that the spymaster's body language was richly expressive. All of Ratchet's old medical backups had been deleted, he'd seen to that when he'd been captured, but he still remembered the condition Starscream had been in when he'd given him medical attention. The poorly healed breaks, deep bruising, and unattended dents hadn't _all_ been Airachnid's doing. Megatron had been beating his Second, and Starscream hadn't needed to admit it aloud for Ratchet to know. He wondered if Megatron ever beat Soundwave (after all, the Emperor clearly wasn't above assaulting his CMO), and the thought made him irrationally angry.

What would he even do about it? He'd already tried to stand up for Knock Out and just look where had that gotten him.

...but he couldn't ignore it either, after everything, he was still an Autobot, still a doctor. Soundwave was one of his captors, and while Ratchet was fairly certain that the spymaster saw him as nothing more than the vehicle that would bring Megatron's sparkling into the world, he still resolved that he would try to help if the private meeting descended into violence. Even if the best he could do was offer medical attention.

While he was waiting, he drank everything that had been put in front of him. Even the liquid aluminum.

It was close to an hour later when Megatron emerged from the berthroom, Soundwave at his heels. Ratchet didn't bother to try and hide it as he swept both of them with a medical scan. Megatron's came back largely nonsensical, courtesy of the Dark Energon in his spark chamber, and Soundwave's came back green. It allowed Ratchet to relax, just a fraction. They stopped in front of Megatron's seat, though neither of them sat, and Ratchet kept his optics on Megatron.

Megatron glared down at him, but astonishingly, his anger seemed to have been mollified somewhat. Whatever Soundwave had done or said, Ratchet couldn't even guess. "Soundwave informs me that if you two don't build up some sort of rapport, a sparkmerge could be dangerous."

"Medically speaking, he's completely right," Ratchet said.

"Fine," Megatron said, his tone annoyed and clipped. Ratchet realized that whatever the fight with Soundwave had been about, the Warlord had lost. To see Megatron in a position of weakness was so rare that Ratchet hardly knew what to make of it. "You'll attend to him tonight, and there'll be no more lounging around in my chambers, you need to earn your keep here, medic."

 _However you want to make yourself feel better about it_ , Ratchet thought. He didn't dare look at Soundwave.

"Clean yourself up and go to the medbay," Megatron growled, "my troops need medical attention."

"I'm pleased to serve," Ratchet said, faking a demure tone, " _Lord_ Megatron."

Ratchet doubted Soundwave thought it was genuine, even if the spymaster did flash him a quick, [ :) ]

It was worth it to see the Warlord grind his teeth, and Ratchet felt something that he thought bordered on glee. He was going to pay for it later, but he decided he could live with that. Megatron turned and stalked out, quietly furious. Soundwave inclined his helm to Ratchet, just barely, and followed.

*** *** ***

Thundercracker leaned down and tapped one finger against the gun the human was holding.

"Just so you know," he said. "None of this MECH stuff is going to hurt Kaon, and by that extension, Tarn."

Dani Burns raised her eye from the sight and tilted her head up to look at the Seeker. Thundercracker was _huge_ , even as far as giant robots went, Starscream and Blades just barely reaching his chest. When she had first seen him, she wondered how he even got into the air, but she supposed he had post-human flight engines to thank for that. He just barely fit into the hangar under the firehouse.

According to Starscream, he was the most 'non-threatening', and he'd been sent here to bot-sit Cylas and make sure the humans didn't get any ideas.

"Why's that?" she asked, shouldering the gun. Its weight wasn't insignificant, but for a weapon its size, she was impressed with how lightweight it was. "Cylas said they took down bots nearly big as you."

"Kaon's an old conduit technician," Thundercracker said, "they don't make them anymore, but his electrical systems can't be disrupted. At least, not like this. He was made to withstand voltages beyond anything your technology can produce. Even if you hit Tarn with it, Kaon will disrupt it."

"I guess that means it won't work on you either," Dani said, smirking when she saw how annoyed the Decepticon was at being sussed out so quickly. "Am I right? Because you're some kind of electrical channeler too?"

Thundercracker made a grinding noise and rolled his optics. It was the only answer she needed.

"What's the deal with them? Are they Joined? Did they give each other their oaths?" Dani sat down and laid the gun across her knees, opening it to check the ammo chamber. "Is Kaon the weak link here? Maybe if we managed to capture him, Tarn would be willing to talk."

"Trust me, the last thing we want is to get Tarn _talking_." Thundercracker ruffled his plating, and to Dani, he looked like a huge, agitated bird. "...and no, they aren't. How do you even know about that?"

"Blades and I talk about cute boys all the time."

Thundercracker sighed. "Tarn would never ask him for the conjunx ritus, because he knows Kaon wouldn't go to Megatron willingly."

"I love it, giant robot celebrity gossip." Dani grinned. "So... the Decepticons have some sort of _jus primae noctis_ thing going on? You guys seem like a classy bunch."

"Uh, no? Megatron just has the rights to mechs on their Joining-night, it's totally different from whatever you're talking about." 

Dani rubbed her temple with one hand. "Thundercracker, do you... know what children are?"

"Not really?"

"Okay, just... don't repeat any of this to Cody and we'll be cool."

"That won't be hard." Thundercracker crossed his arms. "He hasn't done anything but hang out with Bumblebee since you guys brought him in."

"He's _traumatized_."

"Which one?"

Dani made a noise of frustration. "Both of them! I don't think you understand just how much damage you've done, not just to the planet, but to humanity itself. Even _if_ we survive the next few years, we're facing sociological and cultural disaster."

"But you can just--" The Decepticon gestured with one hand. "Make more of yourselves. It'll take time, and you _do_ seem to get old and die really fast, but eventually you can repopulate your planet. And don't blame me! I was on the other side of the galaxy."

"I don't blame you. I know exactly whose fault it was." Dani raised the gun and looked down the sights again, and she refused to even address the logistics of repopulation. Especially when they didn't know how much they had been altered by any secondary effects of the Cybertronian attack. "Now show me where to aim if I want to hit his spark chamber."

Thundercracker reached down and adjusted her aim, using the other hand to point out the nearly invisible seam on his chest. "Right here. Tarn's going to have his Brand over the seam, so you need to aim a bit higher. And he's still got the voice thing, you know."

"I thought we were still betting that it won't work on me and Cylas?" Dani asked, getting a feel for the weight of the weapon. "Since we've got no sparks to disrupt."

"It's still just a bet," Thundercracker said. "Tarn's powers aren't exactly well documented."

"Hey, if this is how we get our shot at Megatron, I'll go all in."

*** *** ***

Barricade was lounging around in the medbay when Ratchet got there, and out of reflex, the medic swept the Decepticon with a medical scan.

"Get out," Ratchet snapped when it came back green. "You're in perfect health."

Barricade whistled, then grinned over at Ratchet. "Look at you, Ratch, Megatron sparks you up and now you think you run the place."

"I do, in fact, the run the place." Ratchet put his hands on his hips. "Knock Out isn't here, so it's my medbay now."

"KO asked me to keep an optic on you."

That's right, he had, hadn't he? Ratchet refused to allow any affection for Knock Out to get in the way of being stern and ill-tempered though. He wanted to give Barricade a nudge with his fields, but they were so tattered and broken he doubted it would do anything but amuse the Decepticon. Instead, he kept them tightly reined in.

"Might be good for me to hang around," Barricade said with a shrug. "In case anyone gets any ideas."

"Like you?"

"Again, Ratch, I'm flattered, but you aren't my type."

"And what, do tell, is your _type_?"

"I'm a sucker for red sport models, so unless you've got Hot Rod stashed in a medicine cabinet somewhere--"

"Don't be obscene!" Ratchet grumbled and eased himself down behind a desk and noting that this time, the computer acknowledged his presence. As he tapped a key to test it, Soundwave pinged him with a password to grant access. The spymaster really _had_ won the fight with Megatron, and Ratchet looked back up at Barricade, who was watching him and grinning. "Do you always act like an adolescent, or are you doing it just to annoy me?"

Barricade leaned against the wall. "Little bit of both?"

"If you're going to stay," Ratchet said, "at least make yourself useful. Help me transform the extra medical berths from inside the walls."

"Uh, sure, but why? KO never uses them."

"In case I need to keep someone overnight, for observation." Ratchet rose from the desk and circled around it, heading into the main bay. If he ever salvaged enough goodwill, maybe he could ask Megatron to build a real hospital. It wouldn't even be the difficult, once Shockwave got the Omega Lock working again, since the old schematics must still exist somewhere. But for now, he'd make do with the facilities in Darkmount. It would be like his old clinic down in the Dead End. He had never turned patients away for their political leanings there, and he wouldn't turn them away now.

"Megs wouldn't like that." Barricade followed him, and ran one hand along wall until he found he seam, activating it to fold the berth out. "Decepticons don't get coddled."

"When I do things he doesn't like, Barricade, he always lets me know." Ratchet copied the motion on the opposite wall. "Trust me."

Barricade shrugged and continued working, finding each seam and triggering it, until he had reached the end of his row. When he finished, he went back down the wall and tested each berth, to make sure it was stable, the hydraulics in his arms straining. "We're good," he confirmed. "Not like they've ever been used."

"Mmmmm." Ratchet said, nodding, and sparing a glance over at Barricade. The Decepticon was handsome, in the way a manufactured mech was allowed to be, presentable while being instantly forgettable. Good enough to take out in public, but not so striking that he'd draw attention away from his Forged owner. Barricade had been, without a doubt, stamped out on the same assembly line as Prowl, only instead of being purchased by the City of Iacon, he'd ended up... somewhere else.

Had his series been built after the municipality had stopped buying? Did whoever originally ordered them go out of business? Had they been sold off to whoever could pay to try and recoup company losses? Was that how he had met Megatron? Ratchet didn't inquire, he was thankful he at least had the grace to know those were ignorant questions.

"What's going on with you and Knock Out?" The idea that he should keep out of Knock Out's personal affairs was something that _had_ occurred to Ratchet, but he had trouble resisting the urge to meddle. That, and if they were going to be friends, Knock Out was just going to have to deal with Ratchet vetting his potential paramours.

"Ain't nothing going on with me and KO." Barricade turned to face him. "Cause if there was, that'd just give Megs another screw to turn."

"I see."

"Plus, Breakdown was my buddy. From way back. You think I'd put the moves on his widow?"

"Yes," said Ratchet, dryly. "In a Praxian minute."

"Autobot, _please_."

"I just think," Ratchet said, "that if there's something there. You should tell him."

Barricade raised an optic ridge. "I'll... keep that in mind."

*** **** ***

Soundwave's apartments weren't far from Megatron's. In retrospect, he should have realized that, and Ratchet wondered if Starscream, Shockwave, and Tarn had quarters in the upper floors of Darkmount as well. He had spent the entire day working, addressing health concerns both major and minor. When he had been present, Knock Out had rarely allowed Ratchet to work on patients directly, most likely on Megatron's orders. Previously, his work in the medbay had largely been advisory, or he’d been assigned to the mindless tasks usually reserved for nurses. Now, at the end of the day, he felt weary and heavy, but in a good way. Among his possessions was a medkit he had taken from the medbay's storage room, it was such a small thing, but carrying it in his subspace made him feel like a physician again, something other than Megatron's berth pet.

The apartment doors hissed open as Ratchet approached and he entered just in time to see Soundwave soar up in his featureless alt-mode and alight on the balcony.

Ratchet was resolved to giving the spymaster his full attention, but he couldn't resist a quick glance around the living space.

If 'living space' was what you wanted to call it. It was empty.

Previously, that had been his assessment of Megatron's quarters. The Emperor had little in the way of personal effects, but at least he had his old war trophies, the small cabinet of engex, the thin layer of padding on his berth, the chairs and couch and holoscreen - the barest nod towards the idea of entertaining guests. Not that Ratchet wanted to call what Megatron and Tarn had done to him there 'entertainment'.

Soundwave's rooms consisted of an energon dispenser, a tiny table next to the dispenser that held an injector (which likely meant that Soundwave did not remove his visor, even in private), and a computer console set into the far wall. It looked identical to the one in Megatron's quarters, and Ratchet guessed it could be folded away and transformed back into the wall as well. There wasn't a berth, but there was a thin outcropping of stone near the ceiling that Ratchet thought might be a seam. A door on the eastern wall probably led to a washrack.

Primus, where did he recharge? There were mechs who got by with less, but none who could go without. Did Megatron insist on this, or was this what made Soundwave happy?

"Hello, Soundwave," he said, in an effort not to look like he was staring at anything.

Soundwave inclined his visor, light glinting off it. Laserbeak retracted from the dock on his master's chest and rubbed briefly against Soundwave's neck cabling. Taking off, the minicon made a quick sweep around the room, buzzing and beeping, before landing on the thin outcropping near the ceiling and folding himself into it. Ratchet couldn't help but feel he had been allowed to witness something very intimate and private.

"You have a very... nice apartment."

The spymaster ignored him and went to the wall, running his spindly fingers over it until he found an invisible seam and triggered it. The hum of partial transformation echoed in the empty space, and a narrow berth folded down.

It still had the protective plastic coating on it. A manufacturer's seal. Soundwave had never used it before.

Ratchet blinked and Soundwave gestured. _Sit_.

He did so, grateful to be off his feet. Soundwave went to the dispenser and withdrew a tiny cube, leaving it on the table. Next, he withdrew a full sized one, and handed it to Ratchet. _Drink_.

"Thank you," Ratchet said, taking it and sipping. Across the room, Laserbeak fluttered down, gripping the edge of the little table. The minicon extended two tiny cables, identical to the ones Soundwave had on his back, and used them to drink. Occasionally, he would make chirruping noises, and the cube drained rapidly.

Once Soundwave was satisfied both of his charges were refuelling, he turned his back and went to the console, powering it on and scrolling through endless cascades of data. Ratchet tried to follow it, but it was all heavily encoded, and he suspected, beyond his own computing abilities.

How long, Ratchet wondered, was Soundwave going to leave him here, sitting in strange, uncomfortable silence? All night? The berth was narrow, but that was only in comparison to Megatron's, and not so much that Ratchet wouldn't be able to get comfortable. He could lay down and rest if he wanted to, unmolested for the first time since Barricade had told him to sleep in the medbay.

...but that wasn't why he had come here, was it?

"Soundwave," Ratchet said, setting his cube aside and withdrawing the medkit from his subspace. "Are you very busy?"

Soundwave turned to face him and gestured to the console, though his visor tilted, first towards the medkit and then towards Ratchet's midsection. _Always. Is the sparkling healthy?_

"Yes, Megatron's sparkling is just fine." Ratchet touched over the gestational tank out of habit. "This is something else. I was hoping you would allow me to take a look at you."

Soundwave pinged him, and then sent him a datastream. A smaller one than usual, the results of a full frame scan he'd done, just a few days ago. That was pertinent, and Ratchet immediately archived it without really looking at it. He'd review it later.

"I can see you're healthy," he said, and it wasn't exactly a lie, "but there are things that a scan won't always catch. Tangled wires. Lag during the transformation sequence. Plating that needs realignment. If you have time, I'd like to do some basic maintenance on you."

Soundwave tapped the centre of his chest. Over the seam.

"Yes." Ratchet nodded. "If we can trust each other, it will make the sparkmerge easier and much safer. For all three of us."

The spymaster considered, and gestured to one arm, then the other.

"I've worked on fliers before," Ratchet said, with a smile. "Jetfire, he was Vosian. Just like Starscream. I can be gentle."

This time, Soundwave gestured to all of himself with a sweep of one arm.

"I know you're..." Ratchet paused, wondering how to put it in a way that Soundwave wouldn't find insulting. "...an outlier, Soundwave. Different. I don't want to judge you or dissect you. I'm not a Functionist."

That seemed to be all that was required, and Soundwave strode noiselessly to the edge of the berth and set, resting his hands on his knees. His visor was pointed straight ahead, but Ratchet decided that was the best he was likely to get, and moved closer, to get to work.

Gently, Ratchet took Soundwave's arm and rested over his legs, testing the joints and the range of motion. Using a soft cloth, he wiped the spymaster down, cleaning between gaps in his plating, places where the spray from a washrack wouldn't reach. Turning up the sensitivity in his hands, he checked Soundwave over for frayed wires and malfunctioning biolights, correcting and rerouting when he found them. It seemed that his faceless companion never quite relaxed, but after a time, the Decepticon's plating ruffled, and Ratchet felt the barest appreciative brush of his fields.

"Don't you have anyone to do this for you?" Ratchet asked.

His own voice crackled back in response, filtering out from somewhere inside Soundwave's frame. _'...an outlier, Soundwave. Different.'_

"Ah," said Ratchet. "I suppose you wouldn't have a trine, then. It might surprise you to know I've been with fliers before."

Once again, his own voice answered him. _'I_ still _have a conjunx. His name is Pharma.'_

Ratchet felt his spark twist, and he paused in the act of adjusting a wire, his ventilations hitching. Soundwave turned, watching him without optics, his visor dark. Ratchet felt his hands fall away, and he balled them into fists at his side. How had he been stupid enough to say Pharma's name? Soundwave moved closer, looming over him, and Ratchet felt a gentle press from his fields. _Are you distressed?_

"No, I--" Ratchet shook his head. "It's just, we were very much in love. Long ago."

Soundwave looked down, as though he was processing, and then back up. His visor flashed. [ Y/[N] ]

"What," Ratchet sputtered, taken aback by the frankness of the insult, "would _you_ know about it?!"

Soundwave leaned in, until his visor was almost touching Ratchet's face. They would have been, if not for the pane of black glass between them, close enough to kiss. Ratchet was suddenly uncomfortable with the act of being alone on a berth with this eerie, faceless mech, but there was nowhere to go. Megatron had warned him that Soundwave was not a gentle creature, but what could he do that--

 _'Ratchet,'_ Optimus' voice crackled out from within Soundwave's hollow body. _'Perhaps we should discuss this when emotions are not running quite so high.'_

It only took Ratchet a second to realize what it was, and he recoiled in horror. "Soundwave, don't--"

 _'No,'_ Ratchet's own voice answered, heavy with anger and frustration. _'We can discuss it right now. Pharma is not qualified to serve aboard the Ark. Assign him to an evacuation fleet. Whichever one is leaving the soonest.'_

 _'I don't believe this--'_ Ratchet heard himself make a noise of sorrow as he heard Pharma's voice for the first time in four million years. _'--you're casting me aside so you won't feel so damn guilty about fragging the Prime!?'_

 _No_ , thought Ratchet, _I was sending you away to protect you. We all suspected the Decepticons knew the location of the Ark's launch site._

Considering that Soundwave had been recording this, their worst fears has been right. But he hadn't said that, had he? Hadn't told Pharma that he loved him. What he had said was--

_'If that's how you want it, Pharma. I'll have someone escort you out.'_

_'Optimus!'_ Pharma's voice, over shuddering ventilations and click of wings beating in anger. _'Are you just going to let him send me away?!'_

_'I am afraid I do not outrank my CMO in matters of medical qualifications.'_

_'Ratchet,'_ Pharma said, from across the barrier of millions of years, and all Ratchet could see was the desperate, pleading look on his face, _'if you do this, if you send me into exile with the evacuation fleet, I won't come back. I'm not a child, let me stay with you.'_

"Soundwave," Ratchet said, gripping at the spymaster's shoulders. "Turn it off! For Primus' sake."

He didn't.

 _'Fine.'_ Ratchet heard himself say. _'Get out, before you miss the evacuation.'_

 _'I know you're in love with him,'_ Pharma said. _'You could at least be brave enough to admit you want him and not me.'_

The hiss of a door, the click of heeled Seeker feet.

The recording crackled, then ended.

Ratchet tired to tell himself he was calm, but his cooling fans were roaring and clicking, and his ventilations came in gasps. His optics burned, and he bit down so hard on the sob rising through his vocalizer that he tasted energon.

He hadn't wept over Pharma when the jet left, not in the panic to reach the Ark. He hadn't truly wept over Optimus, everything had been one grey of blur of pain that had threatened to overwhelm his spark. Hadn't wept over Bulkhead, the children, Cliffjumper.

It all came now, and Ratchet clamped one hand over his mouth to try and stifle the sobs. It hardly did any good, and Soundwave reached forward to hold him, touching his visor to Ratchet's chevron and stroking the back of the medic's head with his spindly fingers, oddly gently. Ratchet gripped Soundwave's armor, just to have something to hold onto.

For a while they stayed like that, and then Soundwave sent him a datastream, refining it as Ratchet received it. It was a barrage of recordings, to much to process, and he acknowledged it in snippets. Optimus, Pharma, Megatron. Iacon burning. The Ark in freefall. The Omega Lock.

 _Your conjunx: in exile. The Prime: offline. Earth: destroyed. The Autobots: gone. The war: over._ Soundwave touched Ratchet's midsection, over the tank. _Your only concern: the Emperor's sparkling. Megatron's happiness._

The cry that spilled out of Ratchet's vocalizer was so sharp it felt like a knife in his tanks. The worst of it was that he knew Soundwave was trying to be kind, and that this was what mercy looked like, from a Decepticon.

Soundwave was not a gentle creature. The Warlord hadn't been lying.

The spymaster shook Ratchet loose gently, then rose. He gestured to the berth. _Rest._

...and then he went back to his console, leaving the medic alone with his grief.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A mostly no-Ratchet chapter as we catch up with the rest of the cast. Some Megatron/Starscream, Tarn/Kaon, implied Kaon/Vos, and Wheeljack/Bulkhead in the background.
> 
> I'll be working lots of overtime and then be on vacation for most of September, so the final chapters may be slightly delayed. I hope you'll be patient with me and thanks for reading!

Decepticons loved to gossip, and other than Soundwave, no one knew that better than Kaon, the List Keeper of the Decepticon Justice Division.

According to popular opinion, Tarn and Starscream hated each other.

Popular opinion was, however, wrong.

The assumption did make a certain sort of sense. After all, Megatron's _most_ loyal follower must have been harbouring some enmity for Megatron's _least_ loyal follower, shouldn't he?

The answer was no.

Tarn and Starscream liked each other just fine.

The Seeker did tend to give Tarn a wide berth, no doubt out of a healthy respect for his powers and the tank's sheer physical prowess.

Tarn, likewise, rarely felt the need to interact directly with Starscream. The DJD were not Decepticon officers or generals, and Tarn was not _officially_ part of Decepticon High Command, though rosters on both sides tended to include him as such.

Course correction for the DJD came only rarely, and it never came from Starscream. Tarn answered only to Megatron, and to some extent, Soundwave - the Emperor's silent and ever-watchful mouthpiece.

When circumstance forced them together, Tarn and Starscream had maintained a simple, cold professionalism with each other. It was no secret that Starscream wanted to overthrow Megatron, and at the same time, it was unlikely that any single Decepticon could hold the throne for long without Tarn's approval and endorsement.

...and while Tarn may have been stronger than _anyone _, for all his power, he wasn't stronger than _everyone_. The DJD was not well liked, and a new Emperor might have _them_ hunted down and executed as an act of petty revenge. Staying on pleasant terms with the mech most likely to seize the throne in the (however unlikely) event of a coup cost Tarn nothing.__

What drove Kaon to fits was that Tarn held up Starscream’s and Megatron's abusive relationship as some sort of romantic ideal. There wasn't even anyone the List Keeper could complain to about it.

Well, other than Vos, but Kaon suspected even Vos was getting sick of hearing about it.

Attempting to murder Megatron was not, strictly speaking, cause for assigning an unfortunate mech to The List or something that merited DJD intervention. If there was a Decepticon powerful, cunning, or ruthless enough to offline the Demon of the Pits, more power to him. It was the _reason_ that the DJD existed independently of Decepticon High Command, so they could carry on should Megatron be compromised or offlined.

Tarn was Megatron's inquisitor, not his bodyguard, though the Cause and Megatron were intertwined so tightly together in Tarn’s mind (and spark) that Kaon sometimes wondered just how objective his commander would be, if it ever came to that.

Starscream's attempts on Megatron's life were something Tarn approved of, even admired. It kept their Master sharp, as Tarn had explained to Kaon on several occasions. It made sure he wouldn't grow lax or weak. Retaliation from Megatron put Starscream in his place and encouraged him to try harder next time. It made both of them stronger, and that made the Cause stronger.

Kaon honestly had trouble seeing how it was supposed to work.

He just knew he didn't like it, and combined with the fact that he had no desire to spread his legs for Megatron it meant that any possibility of a real relationship with Tarn was non-existent.

It wasn't as though he had never joined Tarn in his berth. He even enjoyed the attentions of his leader and commander. Tarn was quite generous with lovers who weren't his victims, and the first time he had overloaded with Tarn's voice curling around his spark had been so intense Kaon had been certain he was about to burn himself out.

Megatron was the sticking point, and the unspoken reason they didn't go to berth together anymore. Kaon still feared that Megatron somehow knew their sparks, and that the Warlord would order him into his berth as a test of loyalty.

Kaon doubted he could pass such a test. He was not a 'people person' on his best days, he wasn't exactly skilled at the art of interfacing, and his ability to feign interest in the Emperor approached non-existent.

Or maybe Megatron wouldn't care. Kaon doubted the Autobot medic was doting and compliant.

And something about the whole situation bothered the List Keeper, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was that Megatron had never ordered them to intervene with Starscream before. An assassination attempt, even one that included Autobot or alien allies, wasn't in and of itself damaging to the Cause. Maybe it was that Soundwave hadn't actually allowed him to _view_ the recordings that had been stolen. Kaon had already seen the original footage of the battle over the Omega Lock, and it wasn't as if he was unfamiliar with Decepticon... well... deception. What recording could be so damning that Starscream would risk everything to obtain it? Who could it possibly implicate?

"Are you getting all of this?" Kaon asked, tilting his helm towards Vos. The List Keeper couldn't see, but while he was on the bridge, he could connect to the ship's cameras and watch Vos through those. Most of the rooms on the Tyranny had cameras. More often than not, Megatron liked to watch.

"Audioboots," Vos replied.

Kaon gritted his dental chips, drumming his fingers on the arm of the secondary command throne and wishing he still had optics to roll. Of course not. "You weren't even listening, were you?"

"Audio," said Vos, but more sternly and forcefully this time. As if to emphasize the importance of the statement, he tapped one clawed finger urgently on the main screen of the ship's control console. "Boooooooooooooots."

"There's nothing wrong with the audio--"

Vos cut him off by engaging the Tyranny's primary guns and firing off a trio of shots. One of them went black on Kaon's targeting screen, but the other two lit up red - direct hits - the Tyranny returned a report.

"Frag me Primus," Kaon muttered, touching his audial to comm Tarn. "That's an Autobot shuttle."

"Audioboots," Vos confirmed. He pointed into the distance and gestured.

It was the hand-signal for 'crash site'.

*** *** ***

They cruised into a low orbit over Earth as Graham worked on the collar that the Decepticons had welded onto Wheeljack's neck.

"You sure this is gonna work?" Wheeljack asked, tilting his head down towards Graham.

"No," Graham answered, barely looking up from the laptop he was fervently working at. "But if you want the collar off, letting me try and disable it remotely is your best bet."

The Wrecker made a face, considering. Despite their earlier confrontation, Heatwave sympathized. It wasn't like they could trust Starscream. He suspected the Seeker would blow the collar the moment they handed over the recordings. Starscream had been negotiating from a position of power when he'd coerced the Rescue Bots into helping him, but at least Heatwave had had enough to bargain with that he hadn't been forced to submit to the same treatment. Neither had anyone on his team, thank Primus.

"Alright," said Wheeljack, nodding to him. "Do it."

"That's it?" Kade looked up from where he had been crouched over Graham, reading over his brother's shoulder. Heatwave doubted his partner was getting anything from the scrolling reams of Cybertronian code. "What if Starscream notices and he blows your head off?"

"Then considering my history as a Wrecker, let's hope Primus has mercy on my spark."

"We should go into another room," Graham said. "Just in case it doesn't work. At this range, the explosion will be instantly fatal to humans. Heatwave, you'll have to stay here, since Wheeljack will need your help to cut the welds and dispose of the collar."

"Uh," said Kade. "Dispose of it? Why do we need to dispose of it? I thought you were gonna disable it?"

"Think about it, Kade." Heatwave sighed, frustrated, and he held out his hands so the humans could step into them. "It might have some kind of failsafe that triggers it if we try and shut it down permanently."

Once he had them secured, he carried them to the secondary piloting throne and set them down.

"Hey are you really going to be in there with Wheeljack?" Kade jabbed him in the arm and Heatwave rolled his optics. "What if the bomb goes off?"

"Yes. I'm really going to be in there. I'll be fine. Stay here. If the worst happens, we're already in orbit and Graham knows how to fly the ship." To end any argument, Heatwave turned his back to Kade and went back into the hold, sealing the door.

"I'm gonna be pissed if you die!" Kade called after him.

Wheeljack was watching Heatwave as he approached. "Y'know," he said, "I'm not sure I see the appeal."

"He's Joined," Heatwave said.

The Wrecker raised an optic ridge. "So then--"

"To someone else," Heatwave ground out. "So don't say anything and let me see the collar."

Wheeljack's demeanour didn't exactly become helpful and his fields didn't relax, but he leaned forward so Heatwave could inspect the collar. The Decepticons hadn't been gentle with the captive Wrecker, and Heatwave knew the extent of the mistreatment went much further than the hastily welded collar.

"It's a slag job," Heatwave said, "but no matter how I cut, I'm going to hit your secondary intakes."

"Don't matter. We can seal it. I got some stuff I use on the hull in back." Wheeljack rolled his shoulders. "Was never gonna be an opera singer anyways."

Heatwave nodded and touched his audial. [Graham, are you ready?]

[Yeah, just give me the word.]

[Hold on for now,] Heatwave sent back.

[Is something wrong--]

Heatwave cut him off, closed the channel, and looked down at Wheeljack, locking optics with him. "Did Bulkhead love you as much as you love him?"

Wheeljack's optics flashed, full of pent-up anger. "What the fragging hell kind of question is that?!"

"It's one I want answered if you want this collar off." Heatwave refused to be intimidated, even when he felt the Wrecker's fields wash over him in flux.

"Oh," said Wheeljack, chuckling darkly. "So now the _Rescue Bot_ wants to play tough guy? You taking Starscream's side? Is that it? You think I'm dangerous?"

"I do," said Heatwave, "but maybe not in the way you think. You're more dangerous to yourself than you are to me. I'm not going to cut the collar off so you can throw your spark away or get us all killed on some halfaft attempt to offline Starscream, or Megatron."

Wheeljack stared up at him, his fields like a whirlwind. His whole frame looked tense, like a beastformer that had been backed into a corner.

"I didn't know him, but I'm guessing Bulkhead wouldn't have wanted that either--"

The Wrecker hauled back and punched him.

This time he was ready for it, and he caught Wheeljack's fist before it connected. The racer swung again, and Heatwave caught his other hand, then they were grappling, careening to the floor with a crash and the shrieks of metal on metal.

Heatwave was bigger than Wheeljack, heavier, and stronger too, but at the disadvantage of having slept through most of the war. It had been millions of years since he'd been in a real fight, and the Wrecker fought dirty. Heatwave got his right arm free and swung at Wheeljack's face, knowing that the smaller mech would go flying if he connected.

Wheeljack snapped his battlemask shut and twisted his head just before the blow landed, and Heatwave's fist glanced off, though the mask dented inwards with a metallic 'pop'. His knuckles burned, and he shunted a yellow-green damage report off his HUD.

"You didn't know him! You don't know anything!" Wheeljack was on top of him as they came to rest, digging one knee into Heatwave's midsection. His optics were white-blue, incandescent with fury. "You sleep through the war and now you want to roll up and give orders?!"

Wheeljack punched him, and he went right for the dented plating and bruised protoflesh he'd hit before. Heatwave cried out and swore, the pain made his optics fritz and glitch. The Wrecker's fist hit him in the audial, and Heatwave's whole frame jerked as he felt something inside his helm break with a delicate clink of glass. Whatever it was, they weren't going to be able to fix it. Graham was pinging urgently, but with the channel closed, no messages came up. The firetruck reached up, grabbing for Wheeljack's shoulder and getting the collar instead. There was a wet scrape as he yanked on it, and Wheeljack screamed something obscene as his secondary intakes protested.

It was enough that it let him throw the Wrecker, and Wheeljack's frame clattered to one side, one of his glass door wings cracking when it clipped against the floor.

"I know!" Heatwave shouted, and rolled to his feet. "Wheeljack I know what it's like!"

"You don't know slag about slag--!"

"Wheeljack, I do! I know what it's like to have to keep living after you lose someone you love." Heatwave's ventilations were making his frame shudder, and one of his optics wouldn't online properly. He wiped at his mouth and his hand came away smeared with energon. Frag it. "You can't throw your life away. Optimus didn't let me do it, and I'm not going to let you do it."

"You still don't get it, do you, Rescue Bot?" Wheeljack shook out his wings as he stood. " _I_ left _him_. _I_ wasn't there. And it was all slag from ages ago, it was over some stupid thing I can't even remember. It was..."

Heatwave blinked.

"If I had been there--"

"Wheeljack," Heatwave said, "if you had been there, it wouldn't have changed anything. I saw the recording. If you love Bulkhead, then stay alive for him. If you love Miko, then help us give this world back to her species."

Wheeljack stared up at him. "You know, when you talk like that, you sound like Optimus."

"Good," Heatwave snapped. "At least someone does. Is that a yes?"

The question hung in the air for a long, tense moment, and finally, Wheeljack nodded.

"We're going to stop Megatron, I promise, but we have to do it together."

"I said I'd play ball, Rescue Bot." Wheeljack rolled his optics. "So don't turn this into a goddamn lecture."

Heatwave approached Wheeljack carefully, inspecting the collar again. The Wrecker's fields were still prickly, but the anger he'd been carrying seemed dulled somehow, it felt washed out. Faded. "...and no killing medics. I don't care what colour their badge is. We're still Autobots. We have to be better than that."

Wheeljack snorted from behind his battlemask. He still hadn't triggered it open, and Heatwave suspected it had been damaged in the fight. "Next you're going to tell me not to magnetize grenades to people."

"That's not entirely off the table, but one thing at a time--" Heatwave touched his good audial. "One second, Graham's pinging me. Not about the fight. He says there's some ships on the scanner."

Wheeljack raised an optic ridge. "The Nemesis? This isn't where Screamer said he'd meet us."

"No, smaller. He thinks one of them is an Autobot ship, and it's, uh, crashing."

Wheeljack pushed past him. "Collar's gotta wait then. We need to find them before Screamer does."

*** *** ***

For all her fears about being instantly caught, Jazz proved to be the most competent mech Arcee has ever worked with. It made sense, after all, it wasn't as if he'd become the head of Special Operations through nepotism.

They drove when the roads were clear, they walked and climbed when they weren't. It didn't take long to find an energon mine, and they hid in the hills, waiting for the Nemesis to make a pickup. Even sheltered by the rocks, Arcee felt exposed.

Jazz talked about the Fleet, the mechs who were there. Autobots who had been off planet when Cybertron went dark, Magnus' crew, Neutrals who had joined them when Decepticons had sacked their planets. Blaster. Tracks and Mirage. Skids and Getaway. Perceptor, a name she actually recognized.

"He was Ratchet's old friend, wasn't he? From the Academy?" She'd been alone for so long, first on Cybertron and then on Earth that sometimes it was hard to remember how big the Autobot Cause had been.

Jazz nodded. "He was, and we're gonna have Ratchet with us when we go back."

"Are you always this unconcerned with logistics?"

"Usually," Jazz said, smirking. "...but I know what you're gonna say, and you're right. We'll get Bee first."

"One thing at a time," Acree said, watching the tiny figures of purple-black Vehicons swarming about below them.

"Y'know," said Jazz. "Picked this spot out for a reason."

"The view?" she asked, unable to keep sarcasm entirely out of her tone.

"Something like that," Jazz replied. "From here, we're gonna be able to watch Maggie and Smokey take off. The second time I've had to watch him go."

Arcee glanced over at him. "Magnus?"

Jazz shook his head. "Naw. Optimus. He's in there, y'know?"

"In the Matrix?" She knew that, of course. She had once been a teacher, and an entire section of the main curriculum was devoted to the Primes. It had been written by the Primes and their puppets in the Senate, so it was largely propaganda, but that the Matrix contained their collected wisdom and powers was no secret. The sight of the Vehicons below made alarm clutch at her spark. They were too close, weren't they?

"He carried it for longer than most, told me once that it was heavy." As if sensing her concern, Jazz nodded in the direction of the mine. "They can't see slag. Maggie can fly right around them."

Unease still prickled through her fields, but Arcee settled down to watch.

Jazz was right, as it turned out. It was nearly impossible to see the shielded form of Magnus' shuttle as it lifted off, virtually invisible against the horizon.

She was being left behind again, but at least this time it had been her choice. At least the Matrix would be safe, and if Jazz was right, whatever remained of Optimus and his legacy too. At least--

Overhead, she heard the roar of flight engines, and a black craft, deadly and sleek, shot over them.

Arcee barely had time to catch a glimpse of it, and she couldn't identify the vessel. It was to large to be a Seeker, to small to be the Nemesis.

"Jazz--!" Arcee pointed, but he was already following the path of the ship with his visor, horror dawning on his faceplates.

"That's The Peaceful Tyranny," he said, softly. His door wings were held straight up, vibrating with emotion she couldn't place. Fear. Desperation. Anger.

"The DJD ship?" Arcee boggled. "Here!? Why!? _How_?!"

It seemed to startle Jazz into action. He transformed and sped down the hill. With no other recourse, Arcee followed. Above them, a salvo of red-black laser fire erupted from the Tyranny, and there was a distant rumble as at least one of the lances connected. It even seemed to shock the Vehicons, who scattered back into the mine.

 _Fine_ , thought Arcee. _At least they won't see us_.

They took a sharp turn around the upper access point to the mine, then went off-road. Cyberformed trees of glass and tin gave the barest sense of security, though they were practically out in the open. They'd be spotted the moment the DJD cared to sweep the area with a scan. As she followed Jazz, she tried to sort out what was fact and what was fiction. Tarn was Mortulis' by-blow, or so the story went, and he couldn't be killed because his sire wouldn't take him back.

That part of was probably fiction, or so Arcee hoped. She had once thought Unicron was fictional.

[Can we fight them?] she asked.

[Don't think so,] Jazz said, his tone grim. [Don't think Maggie can either. We've gotta get there first, get Smokey away somehow. Half of 'em can't drive, and Tarn's a tank. Speed and distance are the only advantage we have.]

[Understood.] Arcee thought of Tailgate, of Cliffjumper, of Optimus, and then she cleared her processor, pouring on speed until there was nothing else but the road and the mission.

*** *** ***

"Sit the frag back down," Wheeljack said, sliding back into the primary command throne. "You can't fight the entire DJD. Hell, you can't even fight _one_ of them, and they already know about your beastmode. Which was your only trump card and you blew it."

"I don't need to fight them," Heatwave said. He was following the Wrecker, his crumpled audial still stinging and glitching. As he came to the console, he disabled it out of frustration, better being half-deaf than that. "I just need to disable their ship. Who are they chasing anyways? Are those Autobots?"

"That's an Autobot shuttle, but it don't mean they're Autobots." Wheeljack tapped the console. "It could be a trap."

"Uh, hey," said Kade, waving one hand. "Who are the DJD?"

Wheeljack and Heatwave exchanged a look.

"Remember before," said Heatwave, "when you asked if there were good Decepticons and bad Decepticons?"

"Sure, but--"

"Well, these are the bad kind of Decepticons."

"How bad?"

Wheeljack chuckled darkly. "The worst. They're gonna shove your buddy Heatwave's brain module in his--"

Heatwave cleared his vocalizer and ignored Kade's confused, angry look. "Can you get close enough that I can jump?"

"Yeah," said Wheeljack, "sure can, but maybe you wanna think a bit harder about 'should I' and not 'can I'?"

"Wheeljack, just do it. Then get clear." Heatwave touched his audial, then cursed and touched his good audial to send a long-range comm. [Thundercracker?]

Seconds crawled by agonizingly, as he waited for a response, but one did come. The Seeker's voice was crackly and filled with static. Too much electricity. [Yeah? What's up? Did you get Starscream's data? Did you know Blades is like, jealous of me, which is weird because back on Cybertron he was never a flyer--]

[I don't have time for this right now.] He debated on how much to tell the Decepticon, but in the end, he went with the truth. [The DJD is here, they're in pursuit of another Autobot ship. I need an assist.]

There was a long pause, filled with sandpapery static. Heatwave guessed that the blue Seeker was consulting with Starscream, both channels open at once. Every second of waiting made Heatwave's spark churn, but Thundercracker finally replied. [Do you have the data?]

[Yes,] said Heatwave. Kade and Wheeljack were yelling at each other, but he only half-heard it, literally. [We've got it. It's secure.]

Inappropriate laughter erupted from the other end of the comm. [Then today's your lucky day, Rescue Bot. Blades and I are on our way.]

Heatwave killed the channel and turned to Kade, who looked angry, and Graham, who looked concerned and afraid, but not mindlessly terrified. In that moment, they looked so small, so helpless and desperate and fragile. He would have protected them anyways, but somehow, knowing he was seeing them for the last time steeled his spark. He tried to remember every detail, the line of Kade's jaw, the way Graham clutched at his laptop like it was a liferaft, knuckles white.

"Hey!" Kade turned and waved at him. "I'm going with you. We're partners, remember? Tell Wheeljack I'm going with you."

Heatwave's optics went to the gold band on Kade's finger.

"No, you're not." He turned to Wheeljack. "Does this ship have an escape pod?"

"Sure does."

"Heatwave!" Kade flailed as Heatwave picked him up, and Graham offered significantly less resistance. "Don't! I can help you!"

"You can't do anything if you're dead," Heatwave said, "but you can help your family, and Chase, and Boulder. Stop fighting."

"The hell I will! Put me down!"

"Pod's in the back," Wheeljack said, without looking up.

*** *** ***

Knock Out followed Tarn up on the bridge. Grateful, at least, that he'd been allowed to clean himself up before leaving the Commander's rooms. The moment they cleared the door, Vos practically exploded out of his seat, sweeping past Helex and Tesarus, his vocalizer running a mile a minute as he ran over to Tarn. Knock Out couldn't follow it, his knowledge of Primal Vernacular was limited to a few medical terms that Ratchet had taught him.

"Fascinating," Tarn said, reaching down and petting Vos, as though the rifle was an overeager pet. "How soon can we be at the crash site?"

"Four minutes," said Kaon, without turning around. Knock Out thought he sensed a hint of annoyance in the other mech's voice. As if there was anything to be annoyed about. If Kaon wanted Tarn, as far as Knock Out was concerned, he could have him. They deserved each other.

Knock Out cleared his vocalizer. "Crash site?"

"Vos shot down an Autobot shuttle," Tarn said, his engines purring. Knock Out supposed the tank had had a good couple of days. "With any luck, the one carrying the Prime's officer cadre."

It wasn't as if Knock Out _cared_ about any of the Prime's followers, but the thought of Tarn putting his hands on Bumblebee made the racer's spark clench and twist.

Fine then, perhaps he cared a little bit. He blamed Ratchet.

"Kaon, can you detect their energy--"

The ship rattled as something hit the hull. Something _heavy_. Knock Out blinked, tilting his helm up towards it, and there was a second impact. This time, he felt the Tyranny shift. The deck tilted, and he heard Kaon swearing from the secondary command throne as he compensated for it. Knock Out had been living on the Nemesis for a long time, and out of habit, he magnetized himself to the floor.

"Another ship!" Kaon called, and Knock Out saw damage reports cascading across the console. "--but why aren't they shooting?"

"My guess," said Tarn, his voice rich and smooth, utterly unconcerned, "is because there's an Autobot on the hull. Knock Out?"

"Yes, Commander?" Knock Out did his best to look demure.

"Fly the ship," Tarn gestured to the primary command throne. "Everyone else, with me."

 _It's now or never_ , Knock Out thought. There was no way he could fight the DJD, but maybe he could even the odds. Maybe the Autobots would kill them all, and Ratchet would be safe from Tarn. Maybe _he_ would be safe from Tarn. Maybe he could be with Breakdown.

"I'm sorry, Commander," Knock Out said. He could make himself _sound_ charming, even if he couldn't look the part with his faceplate in shards. "It's just that, well, Lord Megatron never leaves me without bodyguards."

Tarn stopped dead, his optics raking over Knock Out. In that single terrifying moment, Knock Out realized that Tarn knew everything. Knew just how loyal he was, knew he had tried to kill Megatron, knew that his relationship with Ratchet went beyond just using an Autobot captive to get what he wanted, knew that he was trying to help Starscream. He felt like his spark was going to stop under the weight of the tank's gaze.

"Is that so?" Tarn asked, tilting his helm, just slightly. Some wordless signal had passed between the assembled members of the DJD, and Knock Out felt the air in the room shift, the press of energy fields, dangerous and just barely restrained.

"I-I... it is, yes." It was all Knock Out could do to force the words out, his vocalizer protesting.

"Well," Tarn chuckled, there was something obscene about it, cold and dark, "I wouldn't want to go against _Lord Megatron_ now, would I? Helex, Tesarus... guard Knock Out. Vos, fly the ship."

Vos' chambers clicked and primed as he peeled himself away from Tarn and headed back to the primary command throne.

"Kaon." Tarn held out one arm, like a Senator of noble would for a cherished lover or concubine. "With me."

The look on Kaon's face as he passed Knock Out was so smug that racer wanted to purge his tanks. Kaon took Tarn's arm, and they left together.

Helex's hand fell onto his shoulder and Knock Out shuddered.

_Ratchet_ , he thought. _I tried._

*** *** ***

At some point, Ratchet must have finally fallen into recharge on the narrow berth. He dreamed fitfully, of Pharma and Optimus and Knock Out, and awakened to Soundwave's hand on his shoulder. The spymaster loomed over him, and something flashed across his visor, an image of Megatron's throne room. The place he had 'debriefed' them in.

"I understand," Ratchet said, pushing himself up, his vocalizer still scratchy from crying. "I'll go to him. Do I have time to use the washrack?"

Not that he was dirty, but Ratchet suspected his faceplates were streaked with optical fluids and solvents. Why he cared that Megatron would know his captive had spent most of the night crying, Ratchet wasn't sure, but he still wanted to clean himself off and salvage the tiniest bit of dignity. As if he had any of that left.

Soundwave shook his head, his visor glinting. There was long moment of black silence, and Ratchet realized the Decepticon was hesitating, as though he was uncertain about whether to continue. Finally, a voice Ratchet didn't immediately recognize crackled out of the spymaster's frame.

' _Lord Megatron, this is Helex, I have something to report_.'

"Soundwave, how does this concern--"

' _There was a battle with the Autobots_ ,'

Ratchet's ventilations stopped, and he felt his spark tighten and contract.

' _but we have the Matrix_.'


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic isn't dead, and I still have every intention of finishing it - though things are about to get irretrievably real. Thanks to everyone following this for being patient with me.
> 
> Smokescreen's dialogue is from Season 2, Episode 20 - Legacy.

Ratchet felt his spark shrink in its chamber, and he willed Primus to take him back on the spot.

As the captive medic had come to expect, his god ignored him.

Though he tried to stay calm, Ratchet's imagination ran wild. He wondered who had been carrying the Matrix and how Tarn had found them. Not Arcee, surely. Ratchet disliked shapist thinking, but in the end, she was manufactured. Her frame was too small to hold the relic and her spark not durable enough to withstand the psychic and metaphysical stress. With Bulkhead (who had also been manufactured) offline, that left Bumblebee and Smokescreen, and despite viability, both of them were too young to bear such a burden.

None of it mattered now. It was over.

Everything they had fought and strived and suffered for had all been for nothing.

Ignoring the grief and anguish that Ratchet was sure must have been pouring into his fields, Soundwave guided him up off the berth.

Standing made him feel unsteady, and despair crushed down against his spark as though the emotion had mass.

No one was coming to rescue him. This was the end of Cybertronian civilization. Of the Autobots and their cause. Of Optimus' dreams of freedom on Cybertron. Of--

 _Megatron_.

Ratchet loathed himself for going to the Warlord with even the pretense of willingness. Why hadn't he fought harder? Been stronger? He had begged Orion's murderer to claim him, to treat him kindly, and the very thought of it made him feel as though his spark chamber had been plunged into tar. A shudder crawled through his body, and Ratchet felt disgusted with his own frame. He had overloaded under that monster, recharged next to him, he had--

There would never be peace between them, Ratchet vowed that now.

The sparkling he carried would never be anything more than another Decepticon pawn. Another life for Megatron to toy with and abuse. Something else to hold over Ratchet's head.

Ratchet cursed himself for not seeing it sooner. He would not live in a universe ruled by Megatron, in one where Unicron's by-blow had destroyed or corrupted the Matrix, and he would not bring a sparkling into it either. He had been a coward and a fool, but perhaps it wasn't too late.

That revelation was the only thing that allowed him to stand under the weight of his grief. One way or another, it would all be over soon. He would kill Megatron or die in the attempt.

Spindly fingers touched his arm and Soundwave's subtle presence jerked him free from his dark thoughts. The spymaster pointed at the door. They were expected. Megatron wanted to gloat over his captive.

Soundwave didn't need to elaborate on that part; Ratchet knew it all to well.

*** *** ***

There had been no time to use the washrack, but in the end, Soundwave had relented and at least allowed Ratchet to wash his faceplates and reclaim some measure of dignity before he had to face Megatron.

Ratchet didn't delay, and though it still felt like his spark was failing, the knowledge that today would be the last day that he endured Megatron's attentions gave him strength. It let him walk upright, with his shoulders squared.

The journey from Soundwave's apartments to the main throne room of Darkmount passed in silence, and Ratchet wondered if it was because Soundwave realized there was nothing left to say, or if the spymaster was trying to give him some measure of respect and space. Perhaps Soundwave had already sussed the Autobot captive out, but if he had, he gave no indication.

The throne room, when they arrived, was packed with Decepticons, more than Ratchet had ever seen in one place. Some he recognized and some he didn't - either they had been recruited while he had been laying in stasis aboard the Ark, or they had previously been beneath notice. The towering frame of Astrotrain was difficult to miss, and Ratchet saw Blast Off and Onslaught near the front of the room. That was curious. Megatron must have been in need of soldiers so badly that he had freed them from their spark prisons, a conditional pardon, or some kind of work release. Ratchet saw Barricade in the back, leaning against a wall and watching idly, but the clash of so many energy fields made the car impossible to read. Even so, Ratchet didn't look to him for sympathy. A mech that Ratchet assumed was Helex watched the room from the other side of a holoscreen.

Shockwave stood at the apex of the room with Megatron, and the Warlord was glorious and terrifying in victory.

Megatron looked like he'd been cleaned up and polished just for the occasion. His plating gleamed, despite old battle scars that he hadn't buffed out. His fangs and claws had been sharpened and honed, and they glinted in the light. His fields were triumphant, withering, exultant.

Ratchet loathed everything about him.

Every optic was on him, and Ratchet wanted to shrink back into his frame. Primus! How had the temple prostitutes and Primal concubines endured this sort of scrutiny? He thought of Tarn's carrier, who had surely suffered worse, and knew that he could bear this too. Ratchet drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and crossed the room. No one dared speak, though their lingering gazes threatened to crush him.

"High Senator Shockwave," Ratchet said, inclining his head.

From the perspective of high castes, it was what was proper. Shockwave was the highest-ranking mech in the room, and thus, entitled to be greeted first. To address him before the Emperor was a dire insult and despite the disdain he claimed he held for those in power, Megatron clearly knew it. Previously, Ratchet would never have been so bold, though he was cranky and crass by nature, and Megatron loved to bait him. For a moment, Ratchet feared what would happen in Megatron's berth tonight, but that thought he would not endure another assault galvanized him.

It took Shockwave a moment, the empurata cuts were deep, and Ratchet could tell the scientist was not used to socializing. As though calling up the protocols from some ancient backup, his optic dimmed and he inclined his head. "Academy Dean Ratchet."

"Megatron." Ratchet spat the word out and flared his energy fields. They were tattered and ruined, and he wished he had not allowed the Warlord to break him so thoroughly, but he made no effort to conceal the loathing he poured into them. "You obviously want torment me, so get on with it. Don't keep your audience waiting."

A low chuckle carried through the room, one that was instantly silenced when Megatron's optics knifed into the assembled mechs.

Megatron grabbed Ratchet by the arm and dragged him closer. [Enjoy it while you can, medic.] Megatron squeezed his captive's limb so hard that a warning popped up on Ratchet's HUD. [Tomorrow I will be your God, as well as your master.]

Ratchet didn't respond, and instead turned his attention to Helex. The mech had been waiting patiently all this time, watching the proceedings from his end of a two-way holoscreen.

While Tarn loved the camera and Kaon had been part of the DJD for so long that his appearance was well known to the Autobot High Command, the other three members of Megatron's beloved assassination squad were new. This was Helex, Ratchet had gotten that from the comm Soundwave had made him privy to, and he was a curious case.

Helex was quite clearly Forged, his elaborate biolights and immense frame spoke to Ratchet of his rarity and uniqueness without the need for a medical examination to confirm. Helex's alt-mode, if the medic were guessing, was some kind of magma forge or smelter.

It made him an odd recruit to the Decepticon Cause. A Forged mech with an alt-mode so close to that of the God-Queen Solus Prime should have been snatched up by the priesthood nearly instantly. Perhaps Helex was like Knock Out, his spark had flown too far and too ambitiously, only to be caught by poachers and sold. Was that how Helex had ended up here? Ratchet wondered how the DJD organized themselves, beyond being led by Tarn. It seemed out of place that Helex should be reporting and not Tarn, or Kaon, who was the tank's second - and if rumor was to be believed, his beloved amica endura.

Fear gripped Ratchet. What if, somehow, the Matrix had attached to Tarn?

The DJD's leader was viable, even if he didn't know it himself. Megatron had told Ratchet once that Tarn didn't know where he had come from, but when Ratchet thought back on Tarn's comments during the attempted assault in the medbay, the medic questioned if that were the whole truth. If he fancied himself an intellectual, Tarn had no doubt asked questions about his own origin, and there was nothing to stop him from conducting research in private. Perhaps he hadn't been as loyal as Megatron had believed.

If the Matrix _had_ attached, what would Megatron do? Doubtless he would order Tarn to give it up, but the act of doing so would surely kill the tank.

Primus forgive him for mentioning the possibility, even in passing. Forgive him for angering Megatron enough to call the DJD here. Forgive him for--

 _No_.

No more of that type of thinking. Ratchet had work to do.

"Helex," Megatron said. "Report."

From thousands of light-years away, Helex nodded.

"While we were coming in under the atmosphere, Vos sighted an Autobot shuttle and shot it down." The massive mech rolled his shoulders. "We assumed it was the ship carrying Heatwave and the humans, since we never got a clear visual on it when they fled Cybertron."

Megatron was grinning, gleeful, and he nodded to Helex to continue.

"It wasn't the Rescue Bot ship, it was a Fleet shuttle, so imagine our surprise when we bumped heads with the Ultra Magnus."

There was a murmur of surprise that carried through the room like a current, and Ratchet's spark sank. Ultra Magnus had been the best hope for unifying the Autobot Cause again, and now--

"...and how _is_ the Duly Appointed Enforcer?" Megatron asked, though Ratchet got the impression that the tyrant already knew the answer.

Hele smirked. "No longer functional. Tried to keep him online for you, but he wasn't having it. He had the Matrix-bearer with him."

"Which one was it?" Megatron tightened his grip on Ratchet, who was wondering the same thing.

"Some sparkling. Calls himself Smokescreen, never seen him before."

Megatron tilted his head towards Soundwave, and the spymaster had grown so quiet and still that Ratchet had almost forgotten he was there. "Remind me," said the Warlord, "who that is."

Instantly, an audio clip played. _'Why? Who wants to know?'_

Megatron chuckled, and though Ratchet didn't think it was possible, he loathed Megatron even more. As if the Warlord hadn't known who Smokescreen was! The racer had once been held captive on the Nemesis. For Primus sake, Megatron had been there when Knock Out had extracted an Omega Key from Smokescreen's frame! The Warlord just wanted to get a rise out of him by pretending the Autobots had been beneath notice, and Ratchet refused to give it to him.

"Well," said Megatron. "How is the little Prime?"

"He's fine," Helex said, nonchalant. "Minus his legs. Thing is though, he's not the Prime."

Megatron's optics narrowed, and Ratchet was sure his own were wide with confusion, even as despair echoed through his spark for poor Smokescreen. _What?_

"What?!" Megatron asked, echoing his captive's thoughts.

Helex gestured. "He's got some kind of specialized internal array that was holding the Matrix so it wouldn't attach. It looks custom-made. Was he carrying around an artifact during the War? Something holy?"

Megatron and Soundwave exchanged a glance. Or at least, Ratchet guessed that was what it was. It was hard to tell, when Soundwave had no face.

"I know how to extract it if--"

So then, Helex _had_ been a priest. If the situation had not been so dire, Ratchet would have wondered how Helex had fallen in with the Decepticons, and Tarn in particular. The Decepticon rhetoric on religion, and on Primal Apotheosis especially, was well known.

Megatron held up one hand. "No, Helex. Soundwave and I will be there shortly." Briefly, the Warlord's optics narrowed. "Where is Tarn?"

The million-shanix question. The room grew deathly silent, and even over the blistering pulse of Megatron's energy fields, Ratchet sensed hatred. Tarn was not well-liked, and Helex's optics never left Megatron.

"When we tried to get to the crash-site, we were ambushed by the Prime's officer cadre. They sabotaged the Tyranny, shot us down."

Ratchet blinked. _Officer cadre?_

Unless Helex was counting Bumblebee, and even as the thought entered Ratchet's processor, it made him ache, who was he talking about?

Bulkhead was offline, and while he had left the Wreckers to serve as the Lord Prime's bodyguard, he had had little in the way an official position. Bumblebee was a scout. Arcee and Smokescreen hadn't been part of the Prime's retinue until long after the exile from Cybertron. Wheeljack was practically a defector. The only 'officer' on Team Prime had been Ratchet himself. Magnus must have had other Autobots with him.

Primus, who?

As if he could sense Ratchet's thoughts, Helex reached outside the limits of the viewscreen's projection and hauled a mech into view. "Got this one."

Even from across the gulf of millions of years, Ratchet recognized Jazz instantly.

The spy was a mess, though he couldn't have been in the DJD's custody for more than a day and a night. His plating was dented and scratched, and he was struggling to stand. Helex was, Ratchet realized, holding his captive up. Someone had yanked Jazz' visor out, the monsters. The SpecOps leader had sensitive optics, and his visor helped him sort of visual inputs. Without it, he must have been in agony, even in the relatively dim light of a Decepticon ship. Trust the DJD to have figured that out immediately.

As he tried to keep his feet under him, Jazz didn't acknowledge Ratchet's presence, even though the screen was clearly two-way. He was blind, either temporarily or permanently, but Ratchet could see a few connectors still lit up and winking in Jazz' optics that gave him hope they could be repaired.

Megatron yanked him backwards with a snarl and Ratchet nearly tripped over his own feet. He hadn't even noticed that he'd been approaching the screen.

"Remember your place, medic." Megatron's powerful flight engines revved dangerously.

Ratchet was at a loss for what to do. At the outset, he had been resolved, but was he going to break this quickly and beg Megatron to allow him to repair Jazz? Was it even moral to do so? Ratchet didn't want to prolong an Autobot's life so they could be thrown back to the DJD.

"Jazz," Ratchet called out. "I'm here."

Jazz didn't answer, but Ratchet saw his helm tilt just slightly, towards the sound. Perhaps the DJD had disabled his vocalizer or ordered him not to speak.

"They had organic allies with them." Helex went on, shoving Jazz to one side, out of view. "One of them was a sniper. She shot Tarn in the throat."

"And Tarn is..." Megatron left the words hanging.

"Dying," Helex said. "We need Ratchet."

"The hell you do!" Ratchet glowered up at the holoscreen. "If you think I'm going to repair Tarn so he can torture my friends, you've got another thing--"

Megatron slapped him, and the Warlord's claws left lines of bleeding protoflesh down Ratchet's cheek. "Be silent!"

On the other wise of the holoscreen, Helex waited.

"I will not!" Ratchet tried to struggle out of Megatron's grip, but it was pointless. "And where the hell is Knock Out!?"

Ratchet had expected another blow, but the question seemed to have occurred to Megatron too. The Decepticon leader turned back to Helex, one optic ridge raised.

"Offline," Helex said, without ceremony. "Kaon too. When the Autobots shot us out of the sky, they weren't magnetized down during the crash. They got crushed. They were grey by the time we dragged them out of the wreck."

Out of the corner of one optic, Ratchet saw Barricade raise his helm and watch the holoscreen raptly, and next to him, Ratchet saw Soundwave's visor glint.

Something was wrong. 

Something was wrong, and Megatron was so thoroughly assured of his victory that he didn't seem to notice.

Knock Out _lived_ on a starship, and if Ratchet was guessing correctly about his fellow medic's age, the racer had lived on one for most of his life. After the Decepticons had first captured him, Ratchet had been held on the Nemesis while Darkmount was fortified, and even in a time of little danger, Knock Out had often chided him about staying magnetized. The ship might pitch or sway at any moment, the racer had warned, even if they were just cruising. Ratchet knew less about Kaon, but he was relatively certain the DJD lived on their ship, and Kaon had even better reasons to be paranoid.

Ratchet recalled Tarn standing in the line of fire between Megatron and Kaon, and the picture Soundwave had displayed of Vos in one of the command thrones. If the DJD were also the only crew on their ship, a personal blast shield wouldn't have been out of the question for a treasured friend or amica, even if resources were scarce. After all, Optimus had given Ratchet one before the Ark's launch.

Hurriedly, Ratchet glanced back at Megatron, but the Warlord's demeanor was unchanged. So for the moment, he fell silent. Let Megatron think his captive had been quelled into wordless grief. If Knock Out was alive, why wouldn't he repair Tarn?

Unless he _couldn't_.

If the Matrix had attached, there might be spiritual or metaphysical complications that required the Prime's medic.

 _No_ , Ratchet thought. He wouldn't do it. Not for anything.

"Helex," said Megatron, his tone almost jovial. "Ratchet isn't going anywhere."

"Lord Megatron, I can assure you, Tarn is--"

With one hand, Megatron shoved Ratchet backwards. Two Decepticons caught him as he stumbled and hauled him up, holding him fast. If there was any point in resisting, Ratchet didn't know. Earlier, he had despaired over being forced to attend this circus and endure Megatron's gloating. Now, he didn't want to be dragged from the room.

"Tarn is..." Megatron paused, as though gathering his thoughts. "Not a mech who will be conducive to the peace process, wouldn't you say?"

Helex knew what was happening, and his expression hardened. "Doesn't seem like it's my place to speak to the Emperor about that, one way or another."

Megatron clasped his hands behind his back. "I assume Starscream and his co-conspirators are in custody."

"Air Commander Starscream is." Helex's expression was grim. "We kept him... mostly intact for you. Thundercracker is offline, and Skywarp escaped, the fragging coward. I'll need a Seeker unit to help hunt him down. We have no flyers."

"Then, Helex," said Megatron, "it would seem I am need of a new second-in-command."

"But Vos and Tess--"

"Vos and Tesarus can be reassigned."

Ratchet couldn't fault Megatron for not knowing his audience, even as he was internally disgusted. With victory in hand, why _not_ throw Tarn to the wolves? In one twist of the knife he was winning points with his followers and eliminating one of the last mechs who was powerful enough to challenge him personally.

Primus, Ratchet hated him.

"Is Tarn suffering?" Megatron asked.

"Immensely, Emperor."

"I'm sure you know what to do, Helex." Megatron waved one hand in dismissal and turned to go. "I want it finished before I arrive."

Helex's expression didn't change, but he nodded. Ratchet wondered if the members of the DJD were close, if any member of Tarn's team would give up their spark for him. If Helex was telling the truth, Tarn's closest ally had been crushed to death, and perhaps Tarn didn't have the same hold over the others.

"There _is_ just one more thing," said Helex, from across the galaxy. “Emperor.”

Megatron paused, but didn't turn back. "Yes?"

"It's the Prime's pet spy. I put the screws to him for a bit and he told me something interesting."

Ratchet felt his ventilations hitch, even as he doubted Jazz would give up anything important. It didn't matter how long the DJD had had him.

"--Prowl's up there. Somewhere in Darkmount. Maybe he repainted, dressed himself up to look like a Decepticon."

The room immediately went still, and now, Ratchet knew beyond any doubt that Helex was lying. Jazz wouldn't have given Prowl up. Not for anything. Either Prowl wasn't here or Helex was trying to prevent Megatron from leaving immediately. Perhaps both.

"Soundwave," Megatron said, his voice low and dangerous. "Find him. I want him intact. And secure my prize, don't let anyone near him."

Soundwave gestured to the two Decepticons who were holding Ratchet and then stalked out noiselessly. They followed, dragging the medic between them, though Ratchet made a half-sparked effort to keep up. He didn't struggle, despite the resolve he had left Soundwave's apartments with his morning. Now, he just wanted to know what was going on. As they passed through the doorway, Ratchet saw Blast Off and Onslaught extract themselves from the crowd and follow, keeping a respectable distance. Odd.

What the hell were the DJD up to? More importantly, was Jazz somehow in on it? During the War, Jazz had made of use of dozens of Decepticon informants, though Ratchet had never been privy to their identities. It was need-to-know information and the Prime's medic was such a high priority for capture that Ratchet didn't meet the clearance. It had never bothered him, a four million year war had left him with bigger concerns than where Jazz was getting his information.

But even so, Jazz couldn't have had an informant or an ally in the _DJD of all places_. It was preposterous.

Ratchet's processor raced. There was no doubt that Helex had Smokescreen, there was no other way to know about the array that had held the Omega Key. It was too specific. He had mentioned a female human, so someone who wasn't Kade or Graham. In one of their last conversations, Arcee had told Ratchet that she had searched for June's body, but never found it. Even so, Ratchet had little hope that Jack's mother had survived, and even if she had, she wasn't a warrior or a marksman. It had been Kade's sister, that was Ratchet's best guess, and now he realized it was odd that Helex hadn't mentioned killing her. Surely he would have wanted revenge on Tarn's murderer?

The pair of Decepticons deposited him in Megatron's quarters and left when Soundwave dismissed them with a gesture. As the door hissed closed behind them, Ratchet heard a low hum as a deadbolt transformed and engaged and Soundwave raised one hand, bringing up a glimmering a security shield.

Ratchet watched him. Had Megatron truly not seen through Helex? Why hadn't Soundwave alerted his leader? Were they both trying to trick him?

Soundwave turned to Ratchet and tilted his visor upwards, then tapped his neck cabling.

Ratchet sputtered, but there was only one answer, and it was the truth. "I hope you don't think I'll repair Tarn so he can rape my friends to death."

That Tarn and Soundwave might be close was something that had occurred to Ratchet, but that they might be close enough that Soundwave would go against Megatron for him was something the medic had never considered.

Soundwave hesitated, and then tapped the seam of his chestplates.

"That," snapped Ratchet, "isn't going to matter either. I won't bring a sparkling into this world."

He wished he had made this decision before his sparkling's first flash. Before he had begged Megatron for their lives. Before Tarn had assaulted him. When Knock Out had offered to allow him to terminate in secret.

Ratchet had many regrets, but it was too late for all of them now.

That show Megatron had just put on was as much for Ratchet's benefit as it was for his troops. The Warlord may not have been Tarn's sire in spark or in frame, but he had cut Tarn from his carrier. Claimed him. Raised him. Shaped him. Tarn had learned to be a monster at Megatron's knee, and Ratchet got the message. The sparkling he was carrying could be broken and discarded just as easily.

If Megatron had been trying to frighten him, he had only accomplished the opposite. Ratchet would never allow it.

Soundwave tapped the seam of his chestplates, but more insistently this time.

"Soundwave," said Ratchet, "you have _nothing_ to offer that would change my mind."

Perhaps that comment had been a mistake, because the spymaster's visor flashed and began scrolling through images of the human internet. At first, it was too fast for the optic to closely follow, but in a moment, the datastreams started to narrow and refine. If the internet were still functional or if Soundwave had simply archived the whole thing for posterity, Ratchet didn't know.

"What are you--"

Soundwave settled on a social media post that showed a pale human with blonde hair. He was a young adolescent, an American.

"I have no idea who that child is," Ratchet lied, "and even if I did, he's surely dead by now."

Something clicked inside of Soundwave and the image changed. Another post from the same site, and it showed the child taking a selfie with a yellow-black muscle car in the background.

Damn it all.

Fragging cell phones and kids with their selfies.

Helex hadn't mentioned Cody, and so... what? Soundwave would let him live in exchange for Ratchet agreeing to repair Tarn? Keep him as some kind of Decepticon pet or science experiment? A human captive would only last until the Decepticons grew bored of him, and then...

Ratchet narrowed his optics. "You must think far less of me than I imagined, Soundwave."

Soundwave's visor scrolled through images before settling on a planetary readout. It was an old Cybertronian report, and Ratchet scanned it quickly. Reslis IV, an organic planet, and from the looks of it, one within the limits of human tolerances. Soundwave flashed his visor. The pictures of Cody again, then Kade and Graham down in the storage room, then an old picture of their father, from a human newspaper. Their sister wasn't included, but if the DJD had her, all Ratchet could do was hope whatever she endured had ended quickly.

So Tarn was important enough to Soundwave that the spymaster would defy Megatron for him? What was his stake in this?

Ratchet thought of the lights winking at him from inside Jazz' optics. If something was going on, he owed to his fellow Autobots to try and stay alive, to reach Earth, if only he could, but even still--

He glowered at Soundwave. "Even if I agreed, do you honestly expect me to believe _you'll_ hold up your end the bargain?"

Soundwave pointed at the door, and field powered down. A second later, Ratchet heard the bolt disengage. Onslaught walked in, followed by Blast Off. Both Decepticons were of a size with Megatron, though Ratchet knew Blast Off was subspacing more than half his mass. In other circumstances, he would have marveled at it, but now he was curious for other reasons. Neither of them paid him any mind as they approached Soundwave, who turned his visor to them. For a moment, they all seemed to be conferring, most likely over a private Decepticon frequency, because Ratchet got nothing from the exchange.

"It can be _done_ ," said Blast Off, at last, unable to keep the curiosity and surprise out of his tone. His optics flicked over to Ratchet, and then immediately back to Soundwave. "It won't be easy, and it might take some time, but there's a range limit on a Sigma shuttle, and that model is as old as slag. Only so many places they could have stashed it in that system or the nearby ones."

"We can find it," said Onslaught. "I assure you. Do you want us to leave right now? Reslis isn't exactly a short trip and Megatron--"

Soundwave pointed upwards and bit off to the side, in what was, Ratchet guessed, the direction of Reslis relative to Cybertron.

Onslaught and Blast Off exchanged a look. "If you're going to handle Megatron, then--"

Soundwave cut Onslaught off with a curt nod. [ [Y]/N ]

They nodded in return and turned to leave, though Ratchet caught them both looking at him curiously. The moment the passed through the door, Soundwave reset the security, sealing himself and Ratchet inside again. The spymaster turned back towards Ratchet, his visor blank, waiting.

"If I still refuse," Ratchet said, carefully. "Are you going to call them back?"

Soundwave's visor flickered. [ Y/[N] ] He reached up, and tapped his throat cabling again, and then the seam of his chestplates.

"You want me to repair Tarn," said Ratchet. "And to do a sparkmerge with you, because you think I'll be less likely to take my own life once the sparkling is, by our standards, 'alive'."

Soundwave nodded, just barely.

Ratchet considered, knowing that it was not only that, but the Soundwave wanted to do the merge so he get a handle on Ratchet's intentions. To see if Ratchet might agree to the terms and then murder Tarn out of spite. How much he would be able to hold back, if anything, Ratchet didn't know. It was the most intimate act Cybertronians could perform, and previously, with Pharma and Optimus, there had been no need to hide anything. Finally, he sighed. "There's something inside of me, Soundwave, that I want to spare you from knowing."

It wasn't a lie.

Soundwave tilted his head, and flashed up a barrage of images. The War, in all its horror and glory. _Nothing Soundwave hasn't seen._ He tapped his throat cabling, and then made a hand-sign. The glyph for 'Matrix'.

So he had figured it out too.

"Yes," said Ratchet, finally. "I can repair him, even if the Matrix has attached."

Lazerbeak retracted from the dock on Soundwave's chest and soared away, into the berthroom. To give them some measure of privacy, for whatever it was worth. The moment he was gone, Soundwave's chest plates unlocked and slid open. Ratchet's optics fell to the Decepticon's spark, churning and purple-black, like the dim illumination from an ultraviolet light. He wondered again, about Soundwave and Tarn, but he supposed he would know everything in a moment, and he unlocked his own chest plates, white-blue radiance spilling out from the seam.

"I'll warn you," said Ratchet as he stepped forward, "I am not a gentle creature either."


	18. primum non nocere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a brief description of a miscarriage/death during childbirth in this chapter. It's not exceptionally gory, and I tried not to linger on it, but if you're squeamish about that kind of thing, you might want to skip this. Likewise, there's a fairly bloodless description of Jack and Miko's deaths, but if you don't like the thought of kids getting killed, this chapter might not be for you.
> 
> Finally, a great deal of Tarn's backstory is going to come out here, and it's all non-canonical. Not that Separation was ever canon-compliant, but just letting you know.
> 
> Ratchet and Wheeljack's dialgoue is from Season 2, Episode 14 - Triage.

Corona was the most spectacularly beautiful mech that Ratchet had ever seen, but that may have been bleed from Soundwave's spark.

The medic had never considered that Soundwave might be a mech who was swayed by beauty, but Corona was beyond radiant, as though he had been forged from pure light. The former concubine's paint was chipped and dulled, and when he'd been sold he'd been stripped of most of his fancy modifications, but those did nothing to detract from the perfect lines of his frame and his delicate, refined features. Ratchet recognized Corona from his own memories, but only just barely. They had not been close.

He had inquired once, after Corona's disappearance, and been told the concubine had left the Palace to join the civil service. It was a common enough arrangement. Concubines received formal education as part of their training, and were often given low-ranking government jobs when Sentinel or Zeta grew bored of them. The thought enraged Soundwave as it crossed Ratchet's processor, and now the Autobot wondered just how honest that old arrangement had been. Megatron had said he didn't believe there had only been one, and for once, Ratchet agreed with him.

Soundwave's rage wasn't hot fury, which would burn itself out and cool, the way Megatron's always did. It was icy, abiding, patient, and this was far more frightening.

Corona was also, Ratchet noted, in the late stages of what would ultimately be a fatal carriage. Outer layers of his plating looked leached and gray, and his midsection was pushed outwards and distended. The concubine seemed brittle, as though he had been fractured somehow. It had gone on too long, and it was doubtful that even a talented physician could help him now. Out of reflex, Ratchet tried to sweep Corona with a medical scan, but then recalled that he had no medical programming. He tried to open his mouth to tell Megatron to take Corona to his clinic, but Soundwave had no mouth.

Ratchet was an absent observer here, caught outside the loop of memories.

Soundwave loved Corona, and the spy wished he could put words to the emotion. Ratchet's spark ached with it, and he couldn't understand how Megatron had failed to notice his second's feelings.

..or perhaps Megatron had never cared to. Primus! Of all the mechs on Cybertron, had even _Soundwave_ been beneath notice?

If the tyrant had cared for nothing else, surely he had at least had some regard for Soundwave--

The thought that he didn't made Ratchet genuinely furious, even moreso when their sparks turned together and the thought wounded Soundwave to his core.

But whatever it was that Megatron had done or not done, Soundwave's feelings remained unchanged, and they had important work to do.

They were planning the assassination of Zeta Prime.

"It's here," Corona said, tapping the crudely drawn map of the Palace District with one finger. "Between the wall and the river outflow, there's a blind spot in the security."

Megatron watched, raptly. "And the Prime doesn't know about it? The security teams?"

Corona shook his head. "No. Only the owned mechs do, they use it to come and go from the Palace in secret."

There were others here, with Soundwave and Corona and Megatron. The earliest Decepticons, mechs from the beginning of the Movement. They were Soundwave's friends, and Ratchet knew them all.

Libra, the daughter of merchant-princes, whose jealous brothers had sold her to claim her inheritance. A whore now, before she had become Megatron's accountant and clerk. Payload, a fellow gladiator, who had murdered the former Champion at Megatron's request and was three weeks away from being assassinated in the ring. Sprinter, a courier-drone who believed, wide-eyed and whole-sparked, in Megatron's message of freedom. Barricade, who had come off the end of an Enforcer-drone batch, and been sold to a--

 _Primus_ , thought Ratchet, _did Barricade, of all the mechs on Cybertron, really have a badge as old as the Movement itself_?

How quickly Megatron forgot about his old friends.

...but Soundwave loved Megatron and in the name of the Great Decepticon Uprising, so much could be forgiven. Even this.

"If they can come and go in secret," said Barricade, crossing his arms, "and the Prime don't know about it, why don't they run away?"

Corona shook his head. "They can't. Not any more than we could all escape the Arena. There's nowhere to go."

"There will be," Megatron said, resting one hand on Corona's shoulder and then stroking over his cheek. The slim mech smiled up at their leader, and Ratchet felt Soundwave's spark soar at the sight of it. Corona was happy, that was all that mattered.

It was not what he really wanted, but it was good enough.

*** *** ***

"Your carrier," said Ratchet, as he stepped into the hotel room, his lover holding his arm, "is one of the most insufferable mechs I've ever met, and last week an addict tried to stab me."

"Love," said Pharma, patting his arm with one hand. "It's only for another two days, and I worry about you, all alone in that dingy little clinic."

Ratchet grumbled to himself, despite his affection for the jet, and Soundwave felt wrong somehow. Heavy. Thick. Chained to the ground. The weight of his own frame had him on edge. He was so _full_. Full of _feelings_ and _inputs_ and _sensations_ and reams of extraneous programming. There was no way to sort the feeds, to narrow his viewpoints, to disconnect, and he felt like his helm might burst. How did others mechs stand it all?

...and Ratchet was the worst of them all. He cared so much about everything that Soundwave wondered how the Autobot could tolerate it.

To say nothing of that fact that Pharma's carrier really _was_ doing everything in his power to make Ratchet's life miserable. He clearly didn't approve of the idea of his offspring being Joined to a grounder, no matter how exalted Ratchet's caste was. The only thing that allowed the mech to relent was the older medic's personal connection to the Lord Prime.

Pharma's carrier might not like grounders, but he was all atwitter with the thought of his progeny being attached to someone so close to the Palace.

"Of course we'll have to come back to Vos to visit once the sparklings are born," Pharma said, extracting himself from Ratchet's arm and going to the dispenser in the well-appointed dining area. "Oh, and for the holidays, and when my _iza_ comes back from his work on the colonies, and I'll need to be here for the Prince when they dedicate the memorial, but other than _that_ \--"

"Pharma," said Ratchet, rolling optics, "I'll have you know I loathe Vos, and if I ever see another building without stairs, or I have to be shunted around in another freight elevator, I'm going to be very cross. What's an _iza_?"

"It's... the third trinemate," Pharma explained, gesturing with his free hand as he used the other to extract one cube, then another. He stacked them on top of each other and held them in his talons. "Your carrier, your sire, your _iza_. Sometimes they're the sire through spark instead of frame, but not always. Sometimes they just hover. I'd... make a joke about helicopter parenting, but it's Vosnian, so--"

"What," quipped Ratchet, his lips curving up into an amused smile, "you think it would go over my head?"

"And they say grounders have no sense of humor." Pharma crossed the room to him and handed him one of the cubes, then leaned up to kiss him. To Soundwave, who had only been kissed once before, it felt strange. His lover's lips were warm and sweet tasting, and there was a sweep of glossa through his mouth as their fields mixed without resistance. No, it didn't feel strange, it felt _good_ , and Ratchet used the hand that wasn't holding a cube to hold Pharma's hip and stroke over the seam there with one thumb. In response, the jet's engines thrummed and his wings fluttered, and Soundwave found himself thrilled by the simple reaction.

"Come to berth with me," Ratchet murmured, against the jet's audial, even as Soundwave wondered if he would be able to perform. He had never interfaced before.

"What about our drinks?" Pharma asked, his voice lightly teasing. He had already set his down, and his hands raked over Ratchet's back. They were so clever, the talons perfectly manicured and delicate, and they made the older medic shudder when they traced over his seams.

"They'll be here in morning." Ratchet tipped his own cube over in his hurry to set it down, and something inside of him screamed in protest. Energon was precious, wasn't it? Corona sorely needed it, but then again, Corona was not a name Ratchet knew or cared to know, and he lifted Pharma in his arms and carried him to the berthroom.

*** *** ***

Corona held Soundwave's arm as they walked back to Megatron's quarters.

Well, not Megatron's quarters, they belonged to the mech who owned the area, and Megatron was allowed to stay in them by virtue of being the Champion. Megatron was owned, and so, he was permitted to own nothing. Ratchet felt no stirrings of sympathy for the future tyrant, and he watched Corona from behind Soundwave's visor.

The mech was having trouble walking, and he relied heavily on Soundwave for support. Nearly the moment they were past the doors, Soundwave helped Corona to sit down on one of the low couches. The concubine tilted his helm back, his optics dull and his ventilations laboured. Soundwave hurried off and returned with a cube, and had Ratchet not been horrified at the state of Corona's deterioration, it would have almost been cute to watch Soundwave fussing.

"No," Corona said, pushing the offered cube down with one hand. "Thank you, Soundwave, but I can't. I'll purge."

Soundwave drew back a little and tapped his midsection.

Corona watched him, and the light behind his optics was dim. "I don't think it matters much now."

Soundwave flashed something up on his visor, and though Corona saw it, Ratchet did not. Whatever it was, the concubine didn't appreciate it very much, though he kept his expression neutral enough that Soundwave couldn't read it. After a moment, Corona patted the spot beside him. "Come and sit with me."

There was very little room left and Soundwave was not a mech who was comfortable reclining. He preferred to be apart, a distant observer in the closed loops of others lives. In the end, he ended up perching on the couch, looming over Corona. Soundwave, Ratchet realized, had absolutely no idea how to be casual.

Corona smiled, amused. He reached up, resting his hands on the sides of Soundwave's helm. They were cold, the slave's body temperature was far too low.

"Soundwave," he said. "You're a good mech. I wish we could have known each other in a different world. I wish you had been given a chance to be kind."

Soundwave froze, he felt as though he'd been welded into place, unable to move. What was Corona saying? Corona belonged to Megatron, and surely any mech who Megatron showed an interest in would never desire another. Megatron was perfect, a tower of strength, their liberator. He was--

Corona leaned up and kissed Soundwave on the finial, and the Decepticon felt the touch through his entire body, like a current that connected them, arcing through his sensornet. It seemed shameful, almost scandalous. Megatron would be furious, and Soundwave feared the other gladiator would harm Corona. No one else was allowed to touch Megatron's prize, and the thought made Soundwave draw back. It wasn't as if he could satisfy another mech, even if wouldn't mean betraying Megatron. If he were capable of it, his faceplates would be burning.

Soundwave shook his head. [ Y/[N] ]

"It's not like that, Soundwave." Corona pulled back as well. "I just wanted to be near to someone who cares about me, before the end."

Soundwave's fingers twitched. How did the other mech _know_? Then again, Corona was a concubine, reading the moods of others was part of his job. He flashed up the picture again, and Corona frowned.

"No, Soundwave. Megatron doesn't care about me. He would have discarded me already if I didn't know how to get into the Palace." Corona reached out and touched Soundwave's arms. "I need you to do something for me."

Soundwave shook his head again. [ Y/[N] ]

"Soundwave," Corona said, smiling sweetly. The sight of it made Soundwave's spark flutter, because that was how Corona smiled at Megatron, and in the same moment, Soundwave realized that he couldn't tell if the concubine was being false or not. "Now I need you to do two things for me."

Though he knew he should rise from the couch and leave Corona, he found he couldn't.

"Don't go through your whole life putting Megatron's needs before you own, it's not a sin to want things." Corona rested his hands on Soundwave's chest, over Laserbeak's dock. Normally, the minibot hated to be touched, but the only reaction here was a light pulse of his fields, as though the surveillance drone was in agreement. "...and I know there's very little chance that any of them survive, but you'll take care of them, if they do?"

Hesitantly, Soundwave reached up and rested on hand on Corona's midsection. The touch was chaste, but somehow, it felt like fire was flowing through his lines. He felt hot and he didn't understand why. Corona's blue optics searched the depths of his visor, desperate and hopeful. He had already asked Megatron, Soundwave realized, and been rejected. So then, the only thing to do was to reject him in turn, and--

Soundwave nodded to him, finding he couldn't do it, and Corona leaned into the spy's narrow frame, sobbing with relief.

In time, he calmed. "I have a list of names," he said. "Just in case they make it."

Soundwave nodded again and opened a data channel.

"No, not like that." Corona touched the seam of his chestplates. "They're in here."

There was a long moment of silence, and then the hum of partial transformation as Laserbeak retracted and soared away. Soundwave unlocked his chestplates, and Ratchet searched his memories.

In a more perfect world, Soundwave might have been kind, but even in that world, he would not have been sentimental.

There was only one name that mattered, and it was the first one on the list.

*** *** ***

Soundwave had admittedly seen very few valves. He didn't have one of his own and interfacing had never piqued his interest.

Still, he got the impression, as far as valves went, that Pharma's was quite striking. It was white-blue, and the folds parted on their own, just slightly, like an organic flower. From deeper inside, soft biolights pulsed and shimmered, as though to guide a partner further in. Nestled at the top of the opening was Pharma's anterior node, bright red and instantly noticeable. The view was, all things considered, very nice.

...and he was getting a rather good view, because Ratchet had his mouth on it.

Pharma had one of his legs hooked over Ratchet's shoulder, his heelstrut digging into the other medic's back as his talons raked over Ratchet's helm.

The sensations were difficult for Soundwave to sort out, and the strangest were the way the partners fields mixed together without hesitation or the will to dominate. In the arena, mechs only interfaced because they wanted something from each other, or because it was the right the victor won over the vanquished. The idea of two mechs who simply wanted to be with each other, with nothing else between them, seemed foreign to Soundwave, even alien.

The swell of joy in Ratchet's powerful spark gave Soundwave pause, and he wondered if he hadn't dismissed the concept unfairly. He could see himself enjoying something like this, though perhaps without the all the technical details and mess involved in interfacing.

He wondered too, if he hadn't judged the medic too harshly. Surely Ratchet had forsworn his oaths when he had gone to Prime's berth, exclusive relationship or not, but the Autobot's love and affection were so present that Soundwave was forced to consider that perhaps Ratchet had loved two mechs equally.

Romance was just as messy as interfacing, it seemed.

Pharma's hips arched up as Ratchet sucked at his anterior node, two fingers deep in the jet's valve. Talons twisted into the sheets, and the jet writhed on the berth, his wings scraping where the piles of blankets had slid off the side. He ground down his hips down against Ratchet's mouth, desperate and keening. It was only seconds later that he overloaded messily, crying out and shaking, calling Ratchet's name.

Soundwave felt like an intruder here, a shadow cast over something intimate and private, though it seemed that Ratchet didn't care what he saw. The medic even seemed to welcome Soundwave's presence, as though the Autobot wanted him to see and feel what interfacing was meant to be like. This new thought bothered him, because Ratchet was still angry with Knock Out for showing Tarn the recording. Angry, but worried and affectionate and grieving at the same time. The medic was a mess of contradictions and emotions, and it was impossible for Soundwave to figure it all out.

*** *** ***

Corona was dead when Soundwave and his master returned to Megatron's quarters after the fight.

He had seen mechs die thousands of times. Quickly and slowly. Poorly and well. There were thousands of hours of recordings in his memory backups that told the tales, not just of Megatron's fights, but of everything that happened in the arena and outside of it. Murders and executions and assassinations and crimes of passion. It was all data, and all data was relavant.

...but as deaths went, Soundwave always suspected that Corona's had not been a good one.

He had been worried when the concubine had not appeared on the arena balcony with Megatron's other slaves and followers, and that worry had grown worse when Megatron had told him that Corona had been unable to stand that morning. The gladiator had left his prize laying in his berth, but at some point, Corona must have tried to leave the Champion's apartments, because now he lay on the floor in the main room in a puddle of his own energon and fluids. Corona was grey with death, and his optics were open, staring accusingly upwards.

Ratchet's expertise filled in the gaps in Soundwave's own knowledge, confirming what he had already known. The mech had gone into a birthing configuration, or his ruined frame had at least tried to. Corona had risen from the berth in an attempt to find help, and had a seizure as he had crossed into the main room. Probably the result of metal leech caused by the carriage. Out of sheer distress, his frame had attempted to force the birthing configuration, and the attempt to expel the pods had killed him.

The ruinous results lay on the floor before Soundwave. Some of the pods were intact, but smooth and grey. Lifeless. Others had cracked, their shells too brittle to survive the birthing process, the result of a mech whose frame had been unable to support them. The sparklings inside them twisted up and broken. Corona was torn open, the incomplete birthing configuration not truly wide enough for the pods, and the last of his energon had left his frame through that tear. His midsection was still distended, there were more inside. Soundwave might have gagged, if he had a mouth.

"Disgusting," said Megatron. "Get someone to clean this up."

Were it possible to arc-out purely from rage, Ratchet surely would have done it, and taken Soundwave with him.

Soundwave turned to him, tilting his visor up. He recalled that Corona has said that Megatron didn't care for him. That he was just a thing to be discarded. Megatron stared down at his archivist, his fields neutral and uncaring, one optic raised. At the time, Soundwave had justified it by telling himself that Megatron was only trying to be strong, but Ratchet refused to allow such a deflection.

After Corona, who _else_ had Megatron used and discarded? Libra and Sprinter were nowhere to be found. Ratchet hadn't even known their names, and such important Decepticons should have been well known to the Autobots. Had Barricade only survived by _realizing_ he was beneath notice? How many more were there? Dreadwing? Knock Out? Starscream? _Tarn_?

Ratchet's hatred was burning him, and Soundwave wanted to pull away, but he couldn't. Not with the merge incomplete. To do so would kill the sparkling.

The medic's spark had seemed so innocent, so bright and so slow to turn, but the Autobot was stronger than he looked.

"Didn't you hear me?" Megatron snapped.

Soundwave had, but inside Corona, something twitched. The concubine's frame jerked, and at the scrape of metal on stone, Megatron transformed out one of his blades. With Soundwave following, he approached the body, taking care not to step into the congealing pool of energon and gestational fluids. He prodded Corona's corpse, and the concubine's frame moved again. Megatron's hydraulics flexed, and he cut Corona open with a quick slice. The dead mech's midsection split apart, spilling out more fluids and ruined, desiccated pods. Amidst them, there the barest glint of silver, and Megatron reached down and plucked it out.

For a moment, he held it in one hand, the tiny pod dwarfed by his palm.

Then he passed it to Soundwave.

"Take it," said the Warlord, thrusting it into the spy's hands without a second glance. "He liked you better anyways."

*** *** ***

"I want three sparklings," Pharma said, pressing Ratchet down into the mesh blankets as he climbed onto the ambulance and straddled his conjunx's hips. His fields cascaded with excitement, whirling and flitting around Ratchet like a storm. The jet hadn't sat still since Ratchet had told him about the gestational tank, and Pharma held up three perfectly manicured talons. "Three jets. A perfect trine for the first litter. We can have some grounders after that, I suppose. However many you want."

Ratchet chuckled, bringing his hands up to hold Pharma's hips. "The first litter will almost certainly be just one, and don't be too disappointed if the pod isn't viable. Sometimes they don't hatch. A first carriage can be tricky."

Pharma wiggled on top of him, pressing their arrays together. His lover felt hot, and Soundwave thought that Ratchet did too.

"I wasn't finished," the jet said, wings fluttering. "I want them to attend the Little Flyers Pre-Education Facility, and of course, they'll be at the top of their class. At least, they would be, if Little Flyers had grades--"

"You're joking," said Ratchet, not minding that Soundwave was here. The Decepticon couldn't hurt Pharma, or even hurt his memories of Pharma, and Ratchet wanted him to see a real relationship. What it was like when two mechs wanted to be together, without threats or violence or cruelty. "That... can't be a real thing."

"Of course it is, Little Flyers helps jets discover their capacity for self-expression. Grading them would be so limiting."

“Primus on his throne," Ratchet said, rolling his optics. "You went there didn't you?"

"Of course I did." Pharma sat up, and silhouetted in the low light of the apartment, Ratchet had trouble recalling a time he had looked more beautiful. The younger medic touched the seam of his chestplates, as though he were scandalized. "And I won't sit here while you besmirch a hallowed institution."

"Pharma, it's a pre-education facility."

"And they're never going to be able to go there if we don't get started." Pharma leaned down, kissing him, and Ratchet reached up, drawing him close.

*** *** ***

It took a full season for the pod to hatch, and during that time Soundwave scarcely allowed it out of his sight.

He carried it with him everywhere, and when he recharged, he curled his frame around it, drawing it close to his chest. When times came that he couldn't watch it, he left Laserbeak to stand guard. Ratchet had trouble reconciling the Tarn who had assaulted him with the sparkling in this pod.

It was strange to think that he had been so loved. Easier to pretend that he had always been a monster.

Soundwave had been working when it happened, the pod sitting next to him, in its own chair. The tightly locked plates of the outer shell shifted, and without warning, the sparkling transformed and flopped over onto one side. It was larger than was typical, and Ratchet could make out the the elaborate patterns that would someday become treads, the crest of ridges on the back of the sparklings helm, and perhaps the most damning thing, the discolored patch of protoflesh that indicated the attachment point on its face.

Immediately, it started wailing.

Soundwave panicked.

First, he picked the sparkling up, which only served to make it wail harder. He set it down, and it rolled towards the edge of the chair it had been sitting on, transforming out a pair of hands and trying desperately to reach for a carrier who wasn't there. Soundwave snatched it back up before it could fall, and the eerie mech clutched the sparkling to his chest.

Nothing would help, Ratchet knew. It only wanted its carrier.

If he had been there, Ratchet would have shown Soundwave how to safely open one of his lines so the sparkling could feed. Processed energon was not good for sparklings, they needed fuel and nutrients that had already been filtered through an intake. Instead, Soundwave wandered around the tiny room that adjoined Megatron's apartments, rocking the sparkling until he noticed the energon dispenser. Transferring the flailing sparkling to one hand, he extracted a full-sized cube and set them down next to each other on the low table, then stepped back to observe the results.

Ratchet was not entirely sure what Soundwave had been expecting, and even millions of years later, the spy was embarrassed by his naivité.

The sparkling tried to latch onto the cube with its mouth, and when it found it couldn't, it struck at the container with its tiny fists. The cube rocked once, and before Soundwave could intervene, it toppled over onto the sparkling, spilling out its contents. There was the tiniest pause as silence descended on the room, and then the sparkling resumed wailing as though it would never grow tired of it. The noise didn't seem to harm Soundwave, so Tarn's powers must have developed later.

Ratchet wondered if this sparkling was truly the mech he hated and feared so badly, or if what he felt was emotional bleed from Soundwave.

*** *** ***

Megatron hardly took notice of the sparkling that had become Soundwave's constant companion, except to complain.

It made too much noise, it grew too slowly, it distracted Soundwave.

But the silent mech was nothing if not patient, and Ratchet watched time pass through the filter of Soundwave's memories.

Dutifully, he carried the sparkling to the arena each day, so it could hear other mechs talk and learn to mimic them. He sat on the roof with it and they watched the crowds leave, the mechs transforming and driving or flying away. The act of transforming always excited the sparkling, and it would roll away from Soundwave, to practice on its own. He fed it through an injector at first, cradling it in his lap and easing energon into the sparkling's mouth one drop at a time. Once it was big enough, Soundwave taught it to drink from the tiny cubes he gave to Laserbeak. As a medic, Ratchet was horrified, but he tried not to blame Soundwave too much, it wasn't information that Soundwave had access to, and it wasn't as though Tarn hadn't turned out just fine.

Physically speaking, anyways.

The appearance of treads and the realization that the sparkling was going to be a tank allowed Megatron to relent somewhat. If it would be useful as a warrior, he said, he supposed he'd allow Soundwave to keep it.

Ratchet couldn't help but to wish that Megatron had forced the issue all those years ago, instead of just this morning. The war might have gone differently.

He watched as Soundwave clumsily helped the sparkling through its first molts. He carried it everywhere until it got too big to carry. He taught the sparkling its name, but it was a secret, something that was just between them, and no one else could know. Not even Megatron. Later, Soundwave had the sparkling fitted with a visor and taught it to keep its battlemask closed at all times. The silent mech had a great fear of the sparkling being stolen away by the priests, and it wasn't necessarily an unfounded one. They would have snatched Tarn up the moment they laid optics on him, but none of them had ever descended into the filth of the Kaonite arena circuit.

Tarn was safe, at least, from the priests.

*** *** ***

The first time Tarn killed a mech, he was still an adolescent. A few years shy of his final molt. A child, as far as Ratchet was concerned.

"It was an accident," he said, desperately, as though begging Megatron and Soundwave to believe him.

Soundwave did. Ratchet could tell that Megatron didn't care either way.

The dead mech had been an arena spectator. Soundwave didn't recognize him as one of the employees or slaves, but he looked rich. A quick scan of his internal databases revealed that the corpse was most likely a mech named Comet, who was being groomed over for the leadership of Apex Innovations, a powerful tech conglomerate. It was difficult to be totally sure, the mech's face was all twisted up. Like it had melted.

He sent the data to Megatron on a shielded channel, and the Decepticon leader nodded.

"Get Barricade down here. We need to hide the body." Megatron's optics quested over the dead mech's frame, looking for answers. "The Enforcers will raid the slave quarters if they find him here." The gladiator turned to Tarn, who stood off to one side, his mask closed. "Which begs the question, what was he _doing_ down here in the first place?"

"I..." Tarn began, and then stopped. When he went on, his voice was softer. "He followed me down here. He tried to grab me."

"So you _melted his face off_?" Anger simmered on the edge of Megatron's fields. "There's a place for things like this, by-blow. If all you're good for is putting us in danger, the streets might be a better place for you."

Soundwave bristled, but he knew Megatron would never do it. Megatron would love Corona's sparkling, if he would just give him a chance.

"No, that's not it!" There was something in the young mech's voice now. It was power, and even the echoes of it made Soundwave and Megatron flinch back. "I didn't _do_ anything. I didn't even touch him. I just yelled at him to stop."

Megatron gazed from the mech's ruined frame to Tarn, curious, and then pleased. Relief flooded into Soundwave's spark, that at last, here was a way for the sparkling to win Megatron over. The Decepticon leader took a step forward and put his hand on the child's shoulder. "Show me," he said.

The next time Tarn killed a mech, he asked Megatron which one it should be, and disgusted, Ratchet looked away.

Ratchet had his answers, though they brought him no comfort. Soundwave felt distant, and he was not capable of being giddy, but it was somehow pleasing to know there was a place he fit in. A word for what he was. An _iza_. The sire through spark. He would tell it to Tarn, when he saw him again. When what remained of Corona was safe beyond Megatron's reach.

Pressure on his chest reminded him that the Autobot was still there, and Ratchet pulled backwards, to withdraw from the merge.

Soundwave's cables hissed out, holding him in place. There was more to see.

All data was relevant.

*** *** ***

"Ratchet?" When the static cleared from Ratchet's memories, he was looking up at Optimus. The Prime must have noticed his medic grimacing, and Soundwave had come to the edge of Ratchet's memories, poised there like a predatory bird, and the Autobot tried to push him out. There were things that Soundwave couldn't see, and this was among them.

There was static as he fought for control and lost. He was as desperate to see Optimus as Soundwave was.

"Congratulations, Optimus." Ratchet ex-vented heavily, emotion swirling through his fields. "You're carrying."

Soundwave had suspected as much, and Ratchet wondered what else the spy had known.

"Then I do not believing grimacing is the appropriate response, old friend." Optimus was still sitting on the low table that served as a medical berth in the missile silo, and he touched over his midsection with something like wonder in his fields. "The sire--"

"I can run some more tests, but considering the timing--"

"I see."

Ratchet tried to stay calm. He had to remain professional, no matter what his own thoughts on the matter were. He'd delivered dozens of Primal litters, either by way of Zeta and Sentinel or their concubines. This was no different. Except that it was.

That didn't matter. What mattered was helping Optimus.

"We should," Ratchet said, making his best effort to keep his tone diplomatic, "come up with a story that will be... acceptable to the priests, and to the Autobots. Or you should terminate."

It had been the wrong thing to say. Optimus didn't even look offended or angry, merely disappointed, and somehow Ratchet found that sting was far worse.

"I have no intention of lying to anyone, least of all this sparkling, about their ancestry." Optimus didn't even acknowledge the suggestion of termination, and Ratchet understood, instantly and implicitly, that it was not to be brought up again.

"Sparkling?" Ratchet almost laughed. "Optimus, there's more than one."

It was almost worth it to see him startled. Almost.

The Prime blinked. "How many?"

"Three." This was supposed to be a joyful announcement, and Ratchet wished he could be happy for his commander. Optimus' expression of wonder made Ratchet despair internally at the thought of trying to carry on an alien world in the middle of a war. It was complicated enough in peacetime.

"And that's..." Optimus hesitated, "normal?"

"It's a little large for a first carriage, but you and M--" Ratchet cut himself off, not wanting to enrage himself by actually saying the name. "You and the... sire are both large frame types, so it shouldn't be unhealthy."

Optimus craned his neck cabling, trying to get a better view of diagnostic equipment. "Would it be very difficult to take a picture?"

"Not difficult, but there's not much to see in the first quinary cycle." Ratchet brought up the scans, which were in greyscale, captured the screen and then pointed out the tiny crescents of metal.

Optimus touched the screen over them. "I see only two."

"Trust me, Optimus. The third one's back there, behind the other two." Ratchet chuckled. "They're just being grumpy, and they don't want to come out for a picture."

"Then I believe I will name that one 'Ratchet'." Optimus smiled again, and this time, against all odds, Ratchet smiled with him.

"You should name the other one 'Starscream'," Ratchet said allowing himself a small chuckle of amusement.

"...and the third one 'Deathsaurus'," Optimus added, "for all of Megatron's favourite mechs."

"Optimus!" Ratchet snorted. "You'll confuse the poor sparkling. They won't be a beastformer, there's no coding in your CNA for it."

"How do you know that? Perhaps I am one, and it's just never showed up on the scans." Optimus said it so seriously that Ratchet had barked out a laugh, but in the darkness of Megatron's apartments, he recalled Heatwave and wondered. "It's possible, don't you think?"

Now Ratchet laughed genuinely, leaning against Optimus and resting one hand on the Lord Prime's knee. He reached out with his fields, and felt the Prime's surge in response. Optimus was unshakeable, like a mountain. Like a pillar of light. "I love you," Ratchet said, simply. "Not as a Commander, or because you're the Prime, but--"

Optimus' optics flicked over him and came to rest on the oath-glyph on Ratchet's finger. His expression was hesitant now, guarded. "Ratchet--"

"It... hasn't changed how I feel about him, but Optimus, he's been gone for a very long time."

Ratchet managed to wield the memory away, let Soundwave see something else. For the Allspark's sake, leave Optimus out of this. If Soundwave loved Megatron so much, he could watch something else--

*** *** ***

"Were you and Breakdown exclusive?" Ratchet asked, conversationally. Knock Out sat opposite him, tapping through a dataslate of educational information that Ratchet had put together. By necessity, it mostly dealt with carriage, but just because Knock Out had technically graduated didn't mean he had to stop studying. A pair of warmed cubes sat on the table between them, and Ratchet's energon was chalky with the latest dose of supplements.

Knock Out laughed sharply. "What you talking about? Of course we weren't, you already know that, Ratchet. It's not like you don't have optics."

"Knock Out," said Ratchet, "what Megatron... does to you, or if he shares you with others, you know that doesn't count."

Knock Out did not like the word 'rape', and Ratchet wondered if not using it made it easier for Knock Out to justify his situation, to think of himself as a fearsome Decepticon warrior. Perhaps it reminded him too much of his past, or perhaps the medic just didn't like hearing it. The reason didn't truly matter, only the younger medic's feelings did, and so Ratchet avoided it. He resisted the urge to sweep Knock Out with a medical scan, but the other medic had hardly left the medbay since the DJD's arrival and Ratchet hadn't seen Tarn again either. Thank Primus for that.

"Oh," said Knock Out, looking up from the dataslate. "Then yes, we were. Totally exclusive. I've... never been with anyone else. Though, I suppose that doesn't seem old fashioned to you."

Ratchet snorted. "When I was in school--"

"What," said Knock Out, "was that when Predacons still roamed the surface of Cybertron?"

"Knock Out, don't be a brat."

"I'm serious, Ratchet." The younger medic grinned. "I want to hear all about what education was like back when our planet's tectonic plates were still aligning."

"Primus! I'm not _that_ old." Ratchet rolled his optics and took a long pull of energon. It was too thick and it tasted disgusting, courtesy of the metal supplements, but he swallowed it begrudgingly, thinking of his sparkling. "...and they used to call me the Party Ambulance."

"No!" Knock Out touched the seam on his chestplates, scandalized. He narrowed his optics. " _No_."

"Oh, yes," said Ratchet, around another sip of energon. He wondered how much slag he would have to eat if he asked Knock Out for some jellies. He wished he hadn't kicked up such a fuss over them, previously. "You have no idea."

"So, then, you and Pharma..."

"Pharma and I were never exclusive. I was always busy with the Academy, and even when we lived together, he spent a great deal of his time in Vos, I'm..." Ratchet paused. "I'm surprised the Prince never mentioned him. Pharma was the royal family's personal physician at one point."

"The... Prince?" Knock Out raised an optic ridge. "Oh! Of course. No, Starscream never talks about Vos. It's... still too close, I think."

If Starscream had buried it all as deeply as he could, Ratchet couldn't blame him. The Seeker wouldn't be the only one.

The memory popped and fizzed, as Soundwave tried to control the feed, forcing it back. Ratchet fought him, his spark surging and flaring. He should have known better. Megatron had no regard for Corona, why would he care about Knock Out?

*** *** ***

Soundwave's spark turned inside of Ratchet's, questing. The spymaster was finished with trying to dispel his irrational loathing of Tarn. The world turned. They were in a shuttle.

Wheeljack half-turned in his seat, glancing at Ratchet. "Megatron's communications chief?"

"He must be tracking the same co-ordinates."

Ratchet's blunt fingers scraped against Soundwave's chestplates, trying to control the merge.

*** *** ***

"My name is Knock Out," said the red mech, "and this is my partner, Breakdown."

Breakdown was a company mech, the product of a bodyguard series that were churned out by Apex Innovations. He was handsome, just barely, and in the way manufactured mechs were allowed to be. His red-orange protoflesh made him look both exotic and distinctive. It made him easy to identify, in case he ran away. Which, Soundwave suspected, was exactly the case.

Knock Out was another story, he was clearly Forged, and it would have been obvious even to the untrained eye. He'd been stripped of the mods that identified him as another mech's whore, but Soundwave could still see the hasty fills where his audials had been pierced and the buffed down plating where the racer had once carried his owner's glyphs carved into his frame. The sight of him upset Ratchet, and Soundwave struggled, trying to force the merge back. This was irrelevant, it was data he already had.

Seeing a Forged mech who had been owned was not _entirely_ a surprise. So great was the demand for slaves that poachers risked the wrath of the priests and the Lord Prime's personal armies to steal sparks from the fields igniting around the Well. To own another Forged mech was taboo, but that was precisely the appeal to those in the highest castes.

What surprised him was the way Knock Out and Breakdown's fields wound together, they way the two mechs were drawn together. There were castes, even among the owned, and to see a Senator's berth pet in the arms of a mech as lowly as Breakdown was unheard of.

Megatron clearly noticed it too, or at least, he noticed something, because his optics lingered on Knock Out for entirely too long.

"We heard," Knock Out went on, ignoring the heat in Megatron's gaze, "that you were looking for warriors."

The mechs guarding the Decepticon safehouse would never have allowed them in if they hadn't seen at least some potential in them, but Megatron pried his optics off Knock Out's panels and gave both mechs an unimpressed look.

"And that's what you want?" Megatron asked. "To fight for me?"

"We wanna eat," said Breakdown, "if we have to fight for you to eat, then yeah, we wanna fight."

"You aren't what I'm looking for," Megatron said, turning back to his dataslates. "Leave."

Knock Out started to protest, but Breakdown tugged him back. There was no mistaking the way he put his arm around the smaller mech's shoulders as anything but protective, and the look he shot at Megatron had daggers in it.

They left together, but later, Knock Out would come back alone.

And if Ratchet wanted to see Knock out so much--

*** *** ***

Ratchet and Knockout were working, sorting inventory in a room hidden somewhere in the bowels of Darkmount. It was work for nurses or drones, but Knock Out had no assistants and Ratchet had pitched a fit when Knock Out had suggested they could trust vehicons with delicate medical equipment. Knock Out's sorting systems were also, in a word, atrocious. The younger medic seemed to understand that he needed to know what he had on hand, but not what to do with it after that. Ratchet sat on a stack of boxes, tapping through a dataslate and explaining it all to him.

There were no cameras in this room, and Soundwave hadn't seen this. Now, he watched them from behind his visor, devouring the scene with optics he didn't possess.

"We're supposed to _date_ it all too?" Knock Out asked, whining.

"Of course we are," Ratchet said, trying not to sound as horrified as he felt, and vowing he wouldn't go too hard on Knock Out over it. It wasn't as if, in the course of a four-million year war, Ratchet himself had never had to cut corners or thrown out every case of medicine that was a few months off-date. "Medicine has a long shelf-life, but it _does_ expire. So we move the oldest items to the front, and we use those first--"

Knock Out made a long, pained noise from both engines and vocalizer and Ratchet rolled his optics.

"You know what?" Knock Out asked. "You're carrying, you shouldn't be lifting all these boxes. We should go get some energon and relax in the medbay--"

Ratchet glared at him over the top of the dataslate.

"No? Nothing?" Now, it was Knock Out's turn to roll his optics. "Fiiiiine."

"Let's start with the static bandages. We'll move those all to the front, on that shelf there." Ratchet stood and pointed. "They're used in most procedures, so they should be immediately on hand."

"I think they're over here," Knock Out said, disappearing behind a stack of boxes until only his flared rims were visible. The room was a ramshackle mess, with boxes piled everywhere without rhyme or reason. Ratchet guessed that the Decepticons had just thrown everything they had looted or stolen in here and left Knock Out to sort it out. "Since we're going to be in here _all day_ , I wanted to ask you about something."

Ratchet started clearing the shelf, lifting boxes and setting to one side. Carriage or not, he was still bigger and stronger than Knock Out was, and though Ratchet loved to complain, a little light exertion wouldn't hurt him or the sparkling. "What did you want to know?"

"I've been thinking about the humans."

Ratchet stopped, his hands on a case of tubing. They shook, and he recalled that he had already forgiven Knock Out for this, but it still made his spark burn. He didn't find an answer, and Knock Out took that as an invitation to continue.

"The one who escaped," Knock Out said, and Ratchet heard him rooting around somewhere else in the room. "Did he live?"

Soundwave recalled the lashing of cables as they had passed through the Elite Guard cadet, of grasping and slashing at an Autobot who was frustratingly out of phase. The cold fury that Starscream somehow hadn't managed to secure a pile of Primal Artifacts that had been _lying right there_. The way the Autobot had snatched up the dying, seizing human and fled through a groundbridge.

So that was why the spymaster had wanted to see this so badly.

"Raf?" Ratchet's spark twisted and contracted. "No, he didn't."

"You couldn't do anything for him?" Knock Out had reappeared, carrying a case of bandages.

"No, I--" Ratchet glanced over, trying to gauge if Knock Out was actually being sincere and wondering how much explanation the Decepticon cared to hear. "There were other humans there, a nurse and a military representative, they were going to take him to a hospital. I couldn't leave, and I needed Smokescreen with me in case a Decepticon made it through another groundbridge. He was still alive when they fled the base, but the cyberforming beams hit us only a few minutes later and..."

"Ratchet, I--"

"What happened to Miko?" Ratchet interrupted. It wasn't as if Megatron hadn't forced him watch the footage of the battle of over the Omega Lock a dozen times, but-- "Soundwave cut out that part out of the video."

"When I..." Knock Out set the box down, and drummed his claws on it, nervously. "When I realized what was happening, I put her inside my passenger compartment and sealed it. It didn't help. She had already been exposed for too long and I didn't walk around pressurized for human riders. I don't think there was much oxygen in there. She died, almost right away."

Ratchet wanted to purge, and he almost wished he hadn't asked. What a terrible way for a child to pass. He realized he was holding his midsection, and he had to pry his hands off. He'd come this far though, he may as well hear the end. "What... did you do with her, after that?"

"For a long time, nothing. Megatron had Darkmount on lockdown. I wrapped her up in a static bandage and kept her in a little case."

"Primus!" Ratchet yelled, his fields flaring outwards. "What's wrong with you!? You're deranged!"

"No I'm not!" Knock Out cringed and balled his hands into fists. "That's what humans _do_ with their dead. I saw it on television!"

He was--

Wait, _was_ Knock Out right? Ratchet wasn't entirely sure, he'd cared less about human culture than he'd cared about human science, but even a poorly-conceived attempt to be respectful was surely better than nothing.

Ratchet sighed, and decided he'd have to let it go, and he pulled back his fields. "Is she here? I want to see her."

Knock Out shook his head. "No. After Megatron lifted the lockdown, I went and found the boy--"

"Jack."

"Yes, Jack. He was still lying where Starscream... where Starscream threw him." Knock Out sighed. "I went and found him and dug a little hole and put them both in it and covered them up with dirt."

It sounded barbaric to Ratchet, and he had no idea what to make of it. Was Knock Out being cruel or sincere?

"I put up a digital marker," Knock Out said. "One day, maybe after you have the sparkling, and when Megatron is in a better mood, I can take you there."

Ratchet sputtered. "Why would I want to _go_ there? That's morbid."

"I don't know," Knock Out said. He shrugged. "Humans do that. They don't have a Well on their planet, so I don't think they really knew where their souls went when they died. It was confusing, even to them, and they fought about it all the time. Ridiculous, if you ask me."

"Knock Out--"

"You know," Knock Out said, interrupting, "once Megatron says you can go outside, we could even go and find the other one--"

"Raf," Ratchet snapped. "His name was Raf."

"We could go and find him, and dig another little hole--"

"He was hit by the cyberforming beams--!"

"So what? It's not like it doesn't leave behind bodies. I mean, they're badly calcified, but--"

Ratchet froze. He felt his spark skip and flicker, and for a single moment, he worried he would arc out.

When they had fled the base, they had split up to avoid capture, and they had stayed off the comm as much as possible out of fear of Soundwave. Arcee had more or less stayed behind in Jasper. She was the smallest, the stealthiest, and the most ruthless. Hiding on a Decepticon-controlled planet had been the reality of her living situation for millions of years, and she was the one most suited to it. Ratchet had always known they would never catch her.

In one of her last coded messages she had told him she found June's car, and--

Nothing. She had said she found nothing.

Perhaps June and Agent Fowler had left their car and made a break for it, but that made no sense. They couldn't have outrun the cyberforming beams on foot even if they _hadn't_ needed to carry a dying child between them. Even if they had tried, how far could they have gotten before they were hit? Ratchet was no expert on human spriting records, but he guessed it was a few hundred feet at most, and Arcee was nothing if not thorough. She would have searched the immediate area. If their bodies had been lying somewhere in the desert, she would have found them, badly calcified or not.

 _Where had they gone?_ Ratchet's thoughts grasped desperately for answers. His processor ran through a dozen scenarios, all of them equally preposterous. _How had it happened? What had happened?_

"Ratchet?" Knock Out asked, tilting his helm. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Ratchet said, finding his voice. "I'm fine."

...and he had been, at the time, but now Soundwave knew.

*** *** ***

"You might want to grab onto something," Wheeljack said, chuckling, and Ratchet wrenched the merge away, knifing into Soundwave's thoughts.

*** *** ***

"Soundwave," said Kaon. "It's always a pleasure."

The List Keeper sat at a console in one of the rooms of Darkmount, and Soundwave tried to pull away, but Ratchet held fast. What was so damning that Ratchet wouldn't be allowed to see it? Tarn had already gone to Earth. Their sparks ground against each other, churning and pulsing, as each one tried to control the merge.

"How can I help you?" Kaon asked the question without rising from his seat. He didn't spare Soundwave a glance, there was no point. Neither mech had optics. "We're leaving soon. Tarn wants to leave for Earth as soon as he collects Knock Out."

Soundwave pointed at the console.

"Oh, yes, the organic code." Kaon tapped a few buttons, and something began compiling on the screen. "It's how the humans and their Rescue Bot gained access to the computer core in Darkmount. Megatron and Tarn clearly weren't interested, but I have it here, if you want to see it."

Out of habit, the answer flashed up on Soundwave's visor, but he sent the blind mech a wireless acknowledgement as well. [ [Y]/N ]

Kaon was still facing the console, but Soundwave felt it when he grinned. "What would they do without us?" 

Ratchet tried to hold on, considering the answer to that question, but he couldn't.

*** *** ***

"Guess someone's gonna need a new snitch." Wheeljack leaned over Laserbeak's frame and nudged it, and Soundwave's spark emitted a fury so cold that Ratchet thought it might kill him.

"A minor victory," Ratchet said, frustrated, "and not the one we are here to achieve."

*** *** ***

Soundwave sent the picture directly to Kaon instead of flashing it up on his visor, and the List Keeper acknowledged it immediately.

"Tarn is well," he said, "pleased with the victory, not that it was ever in doubt. After we find the Autobots, we won't return." There was a pause, and Soundwave sensed disappointment rising to the surface of the other Decepticon's thoughts. Perhaps Kaon had thought he would be getting out, someday. "Tarn feels it would damage our image."

*** *** ***

"Hang on there, doc." Wheeljack tossed a grenade into the air and caught it. "Situation’s ripe for an old Wrecker trick."

"I'm... not sure I follow."

*** *** ***

Kaon waited patiently as the upload finished, and he sent it to Soundwave as a datastream.

It had taken a long time to find the virus the Autobots had infected him with. It was so benign that at first, he hadn't even been suspicious. Soundwave rarely went to the medbay. He disliked leaving the Nemesis unguarded, and while he regarded Knock Out with the same cool distance he regarded most other mechs, he didn't want the medic poking around inside him. To say that his internals were atypical would barely begin to scratch the surface.

It was only after they started tracking the Omega Keys that he had become suspicious, and after two straight days of combing over every inch of the Nemesis' programming with Knock Out they had managed to find the virus and excise it. The task had been monumental and the infection insidious. Cybertronian systems were not set up to detect human code. Soundwave had suspected Ratchet immediately, though the medic was not a mnemosurgeon, and the only conclusion was that he had worked in conjunction with human allies.

He was alone with Kaon, who was trusted, and he opened the stream without hesitation. He had not thought Ratchet would be as strong as he was. The medic hadn't resisted his captors before, but Soundwave had to fight to to wrench the memory away.

*** *** ***

"Why plant a mere incendiary device, when we could plant a more devastating bomb." Ratchet knelt over the fallen minibot, transforming one hand. "A virus, engineered to pass from Laserbeak to Soundwave. Then, directly into the Decepticon Warship's mainframe, where it will transmit the contents of the entire Iacon database, to us."

"Sounds complicated." Wheeljack rolled his optics. "Thought we were in a hurry?"

"Optimus would agree," Ratchet said. "Risking the loss of one relic to gain the rest is a worthwhile gamble."

"You really have the chops to pull off that kind of programming?"

"Hn." Ratchet considered it, even as he forced the merge back. "I will require backup."

*** *** ***

It only took one glance inside the file to know who had written it. Code was as distinct as human fingerprints or Cybertronian spark signatures, and Ratchet knew there was no one whose aid or sympathy he deserved less. 

How had they survived? Was it some piece of Cybertronian technology he had overlooked? Had they managed, miraculously, to outpace the cyberforming beams?

No. Of course not. That was absurd.

They had been _rescued_.

In the back of his processor, Ratchet saw Heatwave with his hand outstretched, yelling to him to come. Optimus must have called for Heatwave and his team, at the very end, when he had stayed behind to cover their escape. Wherever it was that Heatwave would have taken Ratchet, Raf was there. Alive and safe. It was a revelation beyond all of Ratchet's wildest hopes, and he felt an emotion that might have been joy. 

Unfortunately, Soundwave already suspected the same thing, and now Ratchet's own thoughts confirmed it.

Any doubts that Ratchet had about the existence of a conspiracy dissolved, and all he felt was the same resolve he had set out with that morning. If Soundwave had hoped to gain Ratchet's trust or win him over by pulling the curtains away from his connection to Tarn, he had accomplished nothing. The sparkling Ratchet was carrying would never be Megatron's plaything, and he renewed that vow now. 

Soundwave had given Tarn to his master, and if he couldn't be trusted with the life of a sparkling he had loved, he could put be trusted with the lives of the Autobots, or Cody and Raf, or any other humans who were still alive. The only thing to do was to help the Autobots in any way he could, and he could blind Megatron, here and now.

It took a titanic effort, more than anything he had endured during the War or before it, but Ratchet brought one hand up, gripped Soundwave by the visor, and threw the other mech backwards.

The narrow spy staggered, then fell.

Bonds of light from their exposed sparks stretched to their limit and snapped, and Ratchet's spark crashed back into his chamber like the impact from a meteor. It was agonizing, and the medic's vision popped and glitched, but it was not beyond the expected symptoms.

Unlike Soundwave, who was untouched, save for a single merge with Corona's failing spark, Ratchet had a hundred merges behind him. Perhaps more. The first awkward attempts with his lovers at medical school. His other serious relationships before Pharma, and then Pharma himself. Optimus. Even a handful of other Autobots, Perceptor, most notably. Soundwave reeled, cables lashing, unable to sort out his systems and rise.

Ratchet had been ready for this. It felt as though there was a hole in his chest, and as if his sensornet had been scoured with acid, but he recovered first. His systems read nonsense, and his frame had shut down his medical programming in an attempt to sort itself out. With no way to get a reading, all he could do was hope that he hadn't killed his sparkling.

Transforming one hand, he stumbled towards Megatron's rooms and slashed off the door's control panel with his scalpels. On the other side, he head Laserbeak screaming and trilling in alarm, and the impact of the minibot's guns on the inside of the door. Ratchet wondered how quickly it could cut through.

 _Not quickly enough_ , he thought, turning back to Soundwave. If Blast Off and Onslaught came running back, he already knew what he'd say to them. _Help me. Whatever Megatron's done to you to keep you in line, I can fix._

The spy tried to push himself up, and Ratchet fell on him. They were of a size, but Ratchet was far heavier than the slim Decepticon was. He had even gotten used to subspacing some of his mass, just a little over ten percent or so. The missile silo had been a human building, it hadn't been meant to have vehicles climbing all over it. He released his grip on the subspaced mass now, he needed every advantage he could get.

" _Iza_ ," he said, "is not the word for _what you are_. Do you even care what you _did_?"

Soundwave reached for him and Ratchet punched him, his fist deflecting off the Decepticon's visor. Underneath him, the spy's frame jerked and twisted.

"He was _yours_ , and you threw him to Megatron like he was _nothing_." Ratchet grabbed Soundwave and slammed him against the floor. The impact echoed in the room.

Something flashed up on Soundwave's visor. A distorted image, a buzz of static. Megatron's voice. _'If there's no use for it, we can't keep wasting energon on it'_.

"Do you think that's supposed to justify what you've _done_?!" Ratchet slammed the Decepticon against the floor again, using all of his strength, and something inside Soundwave broke with an ugly screech. "Did you think I would let you do that to _my_ sparkling? I'm not as helpless as Corona was! Because I promise you I'll kill all three of us before I let you or Megatron lay a hand on--"

Soundwave stopped trying to grab him and pressed both hands to the floor. Green light erupted all around them, and then Ratchet was falling, helpless. A spacebridge. Soundwave must have been directly connected to the computer core of Darkmount.

There was the feeling of being pulled, bewildering and strange. Ratchet didn't release Soundwave, determined not to let him get away. Wherever the spy was going, Ratchet was going too.

It turned out to be the Nemesis.

Or at least, Ratchet assumed that had been Soundwave's intention. Either Starscream had some kind of scrambler field engaged or Soundwave was too disoriented to have gotten the coordinates quite right, because they didn't emerge within the warship, but fell from the spacebridge a few hundred feet above it. Together, they tumbled down from near orbit, hit the hull with enough force that Ratchet felt struts inside his frame break, and bounced off.

Ratchet's vision became a blur of static as they fell, and he caught a glimpse of Soundwave above him, free-falling in root mode. There was no way to tell if the Decepticon was unconscious or too scrambled from the merge to transform and save himself.

Four seconds later, when he blacked out, all he felt was relief that he had kept his promise.


End file.
